Saraqeb Sarin Incident: The Magic Grenades

Saraqeb Sarin Incident: 
The Magic Grenades
October 15, 2017
(rough, incomplete) 
edits 10/16, 10/18, 11/26

(incident: alleged sarin attack, April 29, 2013, in Saraqeb, Idlib province. partial background: A Closer Look On Syria talk page, main page that might finally get filled in soon)

While clarity is pending, my analysis along with Pmr9 suggests the lone fatality of this attack, Mariam Al-Khatib (as given), suffered a rather massive dose of sarin. That could require some explaining when such a small amount was deployed, and it seems no one else suffered serious or any exposure, despite symptoms (real and/or claimed). The more extreme the poisoning, the less plausible it is by the activist narrative - the most extreme doses can best be delivered up-close, but not easily with a dropped bomb or other remote delivery as alleged.

In this case, a strange weapon was allegedly dropped right inside the front gate of the Khatib family's courtyard. Note rubble on right side and towards the camera - this might suggest it flew in from the left, whereas things from helicopters fall straight down. The view seems to be facing north, so perhaps this projectile was fired from the northwest? It didn't explode, it seems to me, just hit the pavement with some weight and displaced some dirt beneath.

clockwise from top left: map from UN report w/note, best view of that home from Google earth, BBC view, app. firing line?

What could help explain a massive dose (for the locale, not for any one person) is early morning with cold air, at a home tucked into its own little hollow, or inside a walled courtyard, with no wind. The sarin vapor, which would behave like fog, would stay pooled at maximum concentrations and evaporate only slowly. The home has a walled courtyard, but otherwise those  best conditions aren't met, and only one person there suffered serious exposure. Maybe it sprayed her right in the face when she got too close? It's possible.

The UN's Dec. 13 report S/2013/735: 
"Weather information from Idlib on the afternoon the 29 April 2013 shows the temperature to be between 34°C and 33°C at 1600 hours (worldweatheronline.com), with  no  clouds  and  a  north  to  north-east  wind  at  4  to  5  miles  per  hour."

That's Idlib, not Saraqeb some distance away. North-northeat should be wind origin, so it would blow southwest, away from the home, but perhaps remaining trapped in the walled courtyard. They could mean the opposite as well. I won't even look up which it shows, because worldweatheronline uses computer models that only sometimes approximate reality - it's not worth citing for something this important. Further, wind barely matters here where it's all allegedly at one home

All we can say is it was mid-afternoon in late spring, so almost surely too warm for ideal sarin conditions - it would evaporate faster than the ideal. The report seems to agree: "In  those conditions, chemicals like Sarin would disperse quite rapidly, especially considering the small volumes allegedly used, while  migrating  a  short  distance  in  the  direction of the wind," which is not actually known. So it would evaporate or dissipate and be less harmful than expected, although the alleged impact is close enough to the home that these issues don't matter much.

But the ultimately fatal dose observed in Mariam Al-Khatib was allegedly from "smoke" released in her courtyard from this munition - an unmarked white plastic hand grenade they showed to explain the incident. One man handles it with bare hands. It's now said this another copy of the weapon, or a similar one used for illustration, not the exact unit responsible. The exact allegation at the time is unclear to me.

The smoke it emitted is described as white, but the smoke stains on this unit are black. Heat is suggested too, whereas burning level heat would destroy fragile sarin molecules - they need a cool dispersion, like fog. As for quantity: one unit could only hold so much sarin, but it's alleged two of these - or similar - were used at each attack site (see below).

The same style of grenade was allegedly used once before, in an April 13, 2013 chemical attack in Aleppo district of Sheikh Maqsoud. The sprawling Kurdish-majority district was just overrun by Islamists headed by Jabhat al-Nusra when this grenade fell into an apartment building, after allegedly being dropped from a helicopter, killing 14 (4 women and children reported right away, 10 men barely mentioned later). US tests later claimed to identify sarin in this incident, despite the initial lack of indications by symptoms like gillettosis - shaving cream applied to the face (ACLOS page).

Otherwise, the device was unseen and unknown at the time.  After the 29th, its profile was raised, and was quickly matched to some photos of a Jabhat Al-Nusra religious policeman in the country's north. This was publicized by Eliot Higgins/Brown Moses, it should be noted, on May 8, 2013. It was sort of astounding. Was al-Nusra behind these events?

Shortly, an explanation appeared; the Assad regime had these things first. Non-Nusra but Islamist rebels ("Abu Dhar al-Ghafari Brigade") proved that by showing some they had, because they had just then found them on some soldiers they captured across the country in Irbin, Damascus. (May 23 video by Marwan the Umayyad, showing a chest of "booty seized by the heroes of the Free Army after defeating the Assad forces") On May 24 Higgins passed on this claim and seemed to buy it, it should be noted.
Add Oct. 16: Michael Kobs identifies some other improvised weapons siezed from the regime thugs in that video - matched to weapons Al-Nusra filmed themselves improvising (not verified, but looks pretty likely).

Later on, German journalist Alfred Hackensberger poked around inside Syria, using photos and questions to find a number of rebels and a defector to say the same, incrementally. At first no one knew, then some guys remembered JaN had them, or maybe it as another militia, but they weren't chemical grenades. Then al-Nusra people said they had them, having seized them from the regime, but they weren't chemical weapons, just smoke or maybe tear gas canisters. Then a defector (who admits running weapons deliveries at the Turkish border) appeared, and said he saw them used back in the army: Iranians sent them to disperse a nerve agent to "calm" the protesters, or so the common grunt was told. So if it turns out these things have something dangerous, it's the regime's and Iran's fault, not this smuggler's or Turkey's. At least this is what Hackensberger heard, as he pushed for an explanation and, I think, as one was fabricated for him. (his article in Die Welt (German), and credulous Brown Moses coverage - and see my lone comment) 

Eliot Higgins at Bellingcat revisited the case in 2017, with the same story he had in 2013 as re-hashed by the French intelligence report just released. On their end, it seems quite clear whose copies of the grenades were used in the attack. According to the (accepted) activist claims; they were packed into something like cinderblocks (or breezeblocks) - 2 grenades per block, somehow secured, maybe with an external box, and dropped from a regime helicopter. It's alleged three blocks total (six grenades) were dropped in this attack.

The regime has no reason to do this, everyone agrees, but hey ... Jabhat al-Nusra doesn't have helicopters.

Activists provided video for one of the three drops at the time, with James Miller alerting Eliot Higgins swiftly. This was accepted as adding to the picture; the bomb package glows and pours white smoke as it falls. Higgins thinks they lit the outer box on fire for some reason. But to me this is pretty clearly some white phosphorous being dropped, as a screening agent for some Syrian army ground operation (ones in the area were underway, at an air base a way away from Saraqeb). It would look exactly like this. Look up videos to see.

Hence, there's no supporting video of this cinderblock drop. Is it that hard to admit? That reported drop might have happened anyway, or quite likely not. The grenades, smoke, poison - whatever part was physically true - may have gotten in the Khatib courtyard or Mariam's bloodstream in this way, or in some other way. But it is problematic how three alleged drops in broad daylight somehow didn't get filmed.

Higgins maintains even now this is the weapon falling, but he acknowledged to me in 2013 (comments) "this doesn't seem to really match with a Sarin attack ... The more I think about it, the weirder it gets." Maybe after a few years of not thinking about these details, it got to seeming alright again.

He credits the French intelligence report (presentation and report, English versions) for clarifying things. This was released in 2017 to bolster the case for government guilt in the Khan Sheikhoun incident. It does add some details I haven't assessed fully, claiming to link two exact grenades to the attack, and to have found 60% pure sarin inside them. They show two units, top from the Khatib family home, broken into pieces, and bottom from another impact on the edge of town.

Both appear a bit different from the kind shown at the time, and perhaps different from each other. Both appear slightly curved, they think, because they fell from a helicopter. The top image is especially unclear, second-hand. Also lest we forget, they say there were two grenades per brick, and the French report claims 3 weapon drops that day. That means we're only seeing 1/3 of the claimed units here.

The main thrust of the report was to let France claim that Khan Sheikhoun was a regime attack, because it used the same exact kind of sarin used in Saraqeb, which was ... an especially clear case, in their minds? From that case, the French spooks learned the Syrian government's method of producing sarin. The clever buggers! It was uniquely devised and "involves the use of hexamine as a stabilizer." It's suggested the Syrians invented this process and remain the only people in the world capable of using it.

"The  presence  of  the  same  chemical  compounds  in  the  environmental  samples collected  during  the  attacks  on  Khan  Sheikhoun  on  4 April 2017  and  on  Saraqib  on 29 April 2013  ...  produced using the same manufacturing process ... Moreover, the presence of  hexamine  indicates  that  this  manufacturing  process  is  that  developed  by  the  Scientific Studies and Research Centre for the Syrian regime." 

That was "formally  confirmed  by  France," the report itself states with authority.

Hexamine is made to sound like some DNA fingerprint level clue meaning Assad did it. But it can in fact be from several things, like the small explosive opening charge on a CW munition, or sarin made with the same process but by someone else, or even manufacturing or burning plastics in the area. This is partly explained at Washington's Blog, where Dr. Ake Sellström (former head of UN-OPCW CW invstigations in both Iraq and Syria) acknowledged this, and noted "the phrasing in the (French) statement is clever." Science, of course, isn't about being "clever."

Anyway, it was apparently the French report that led Higgins to summarize:

... it is now clear that this attack was the deployment of sarin as a chemical weapon by Syrian government forces against a civilian population ... one question remains. Why did Syrian forces use sarin in such a bizarre way, ... we are yet to understand exactly why the attack took place in the manner it did.

Of course whether it even did happen that way is a far more important question, among  the many questions that he doesn't mention.

Just considering opposition sources, there have been two other earnestly-offered explanations (original articles all pulled now, but documented here at ACLOS). .
* barrel bombs filled wit TNT and sarin was dropped from a helicopter, "each poisoning an area of one kilometer in diameter," while "a third barrel" didn't blow up but spread phosphorus "to cover up the Sarin" (which would be destroyed already by the TNT). "Phosphorus is used in fertilizer, so they could have claimed that the people were poisoned because of an agricultural accident." Hm. Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat reported this.
* Others said a helicopter  "dropped bags" to disperse "dust particles, causing 14 suffocation injuries." Turkish sources at first spoke of "some 13 victims of an attack that included white powder." (PRI) Elsewhere, two people were killed" (who's the other?) "and 20 others were injured Tuesday when planes dropped bags of suspected chemicals in Idlib province, al-Jazeera reported." (UPI) If the Al-Jazeera report was in English, it's was apparently pulled. I'll check Arabic. <add 10/18>found it, Arabic, April 30, Google translated: "Two people were killed and about 20 injured in the town of Sarqeb in rural Idlib after the warplanes dropped bags containing what they described as foreign materials..." The word for bags also translates as "tanks" (in the article) but bags in the preview. Isolating it, it's the same word in both:  أكياسا A Bing image search shows handbags, mainly. The two dead could be the two seriously affected (one of whom later died at the Turkish border) misreported as dead. But here it sounds like they died in Saraqeb.<end 10/18>

* So it's basically "whatever, but from a helicopter," or maybe from "planes." Heck, it could have been scud missiles, just something only the regime has. That part is clear.

But if we accept the grenade story, we have to accept these others weren't telling the truth. But then if this class of activist produces multiple false helicopter-based stories, why believe their other helicopter story? 

And the Syrian government had an unusually-detailed counter-claim involving  ... yes, terrorists and ... hostages, barrels of poisonous liquid with incapacitating fumes, and/or plastic bags of white powder people had "thrown" in their faces near the southern entrance into town, and people rushed to Turkey just to get test results. (ACLOS)

Every story here is weird. The event almost surely was weird. So which story seems closer to likely?

Why is it bags of powder the most agreed version, between Syria's, Turkey's and some of the opposition's sources?  Eliot Higgins early ran on the notion that "canisters" of powder and grenades were used, showing this pile of white powder with some solid, caked-seeming chunks. This is how first reports sounded, but soon the BBC-backed Ian Pannel story of grenade-packed cinderblocks emerged, and Higgins decided this is really the smashed block remains at an alleged impact site. This is by the highway at the southern entrance into town ... or actually I thought it was the north end earlier, hen I first looked. But it needs review. This might be where Syria's sources have powder thrown around.

Where's the same dust of smashed block in the courtyard impact shown above? (the outer boxes will be burned away, since they were apparently lit on fire to appear as glowing, the thinking probably runs).

Magic Grenades in Memoriam

Between its Aleppo debut and this second appearance, the ingenious brick-drop sarin grenade managed to kill a murky few civilians, and to make rebel accusations look bizarre and even silly, and to make the deaths look kind of like ... things the terrorists themselves were doing. Aha! Is this why the regime did it? Well, after doing such a good job of embarrassing the rebels, they must have taken off and had them appear all over, right?

No. This was the second and final attack involving this specific weapon. Someone put it into retirement, took a break, and then switched to large-quantity surface rockets, as blamed for the infamous Ghouta chemical massacre a few months later. Afterwards, that weapon too - and sarin attack allegations - were put to sleep for the time being, favoring chlorine from helicopter stories for 3 years. Now it's sarin again, in murky bombs maybe with chlorine, dropped from one guy's jet Quds1, and he's a friggin' Alawite who they say should die and maybe did.

After all this, I note that chemical scud missiles have really been underplayed so far. Might that finally spark an intervention? Will Assad just have to try it at some worst possible time?

 ---
Update 1 (11/26):
In the Saraqeb attack, it later seemed the Nusra grenade was shown as a similar example, not the exact weapon used - it's not shown in situ that I've noticed, just being held up by activists as somehow relevant, and the French intelligence report shows 2 grenades, looking somewhat different, from that and from each other. We'll come back to that, but that exact Nusra grenade is supposed to be downgraded by that wrinkle. Eliot Higgins, who thinks neither grenade in the French report matches the original white grenade, concludes: "...the French report only talks about two grenades from two different sites, and does not refer to the white grenade shown above." He doesn't say that original and problematic weapon is irrelevant, but the French report doesn't deal with that model (he thinks, but I'm not sure of that mismatch), just two other, different grenades, one from the Khatib home, and one from the south of town that tested for sarin.

But in the earlier appearance in Sheikh Maqsoud, Aleppo, on the 13th, the very grenade used, presumably, is seen laying on the stairs, and that one is apparently the same unit we might've been left wondering about (see comparison below). It was not just confused into the picture. This thing, from a helicopter, is what they had the regime doing in those days, and that cannot be re-written now (not that anyone was, explicitly, that I can prove...).

More on that Nusra grenade photo:
by Jeffry Ruigendijk, with comments here
http://www.ruigphotography.com/NusraChemicalWeaponsSyria
He notes it was taken in Ras Al Ayn / Serekaniye, on April 21, 2013. That's a Kurdish village at the Turkish border, across from Ceylanpinar, Turkey. All kinds of fighters and supplies from Turkey to the Jihadists would pass here, where the "FSA" tended to run the crossing, and some would be distributed and used here. Ras al Ayn (or Serê Kaniyê in Kurdish) was at the time a deeply troubled place (ACLOS).

This photo date is after clashes between Turkish-backed "FSA" Jihadists and Kurdish forces, from November, 2012 to Jan. 2013, followed by agreements like a joint police force. And it's not long before renewed fighting in July, sparked by the FSA's pals Jabhat al-Nusra abducting a female YPG driver. In between, a Nusra policeman controls these lined-up people with rifle, smoke grenade (this one presumably NOT containing sarin), handcuffs, a serious knife, possibly something to whip people with in his other hand (?). He should have a koran on hand in case there's any dispute over what's legal.

In relation to sarin grenade usage, this photo is a week after first use, and a week before second use.
Not only have their reen no further reported sarin attacks with these things, there's been no further citings I'm aware of, strapped to sharia lawmen or anywhere, aside from the video and story cited in the article above, or the timeline below, serving to put a positive spin on the story as they shut it down. This grenade might have been retired on all fronts after the debacle, which reads like an admission that this story really failed.

 ...
Update 2 (soon)

MSF: Building Images of Proof, Using Video-Word Montage

MSF: Building Images of Proof, Using Video-Word Montage
Adam Larson aka Caustic Logic
February 20, 2017

On February 15, 2016 (a year ago), Medecins San Frontiers (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) lodged complaints that Russian and Syrian airstrikes had destroyed one MSF-supported clinic in Idlib province, and then targeted a second hospital nearby. They claimed as a fact that 25 civilians were killed, and 11 wounded, in these attacks. Previous reports compiled at ACLOS; our coverage of this case was not very complete, and a year later I have no ready debunk.

But, on the anniversary, MSF revisited the issue, bolstered by video analysis by Forensic Architecture. Building Evidence with Images. The video they show can be seen alone on Youtube here. I like visual analysis and, when I have time, verifying it. They use some computerized version of the same thing I've done since 2011 the rough way - field of view, lines of sight, correlating features and geolocating scenes, and even measuring the direction of sunlight to find the time of day. Only rarely does it not pan out - the video usually is filmed where they say, and does show people criminally murdered, etc. geolocations are considered valid until I see otherwise - they're too easy to prove wrong if not. (but not easy enough to bother with right now) 

The problem usually lies with the unproven backstory attached to the video events. It's often like this: "yes, this is where the event that rebels seem to be lying about occurred, and that's the aftermath of it. They probably killed those people, and that's why they've got the bodies in their pickup truck," etc.

Still, this probably deserves a full double-checking of their video analysis work. But I'm swamped. In fact, I may do this with no visuals, to help raise the point that a snazzy visual analysis doesn't always prove the truth behind the appearance. With some thoughts from others, and just one decent review of the videos, I'll also try for a quick review here, for now raising more questions than answers.

What they add, and what questions remain:

Again, having not double-checked their work except to see that it's likely correct and not obviously wrong ... Forensic Analysis adds seemingly valuable analysis to show these blasts happened about when and where they were reported. It adds more than usual in this case, which is probably why they picked it. I've seen some terrible stories fall apart like wet cardboard as soon as I pull them open. In this case, not immediately. But I think the who, how, and why still are open to question.

We should note at the start, as MSF may not have considered, hospitals may include or be near militant targets, and be destroyed or damaged in the course of necessary fighting. If either jet strike is real, was there a legit target in the same area?

Again, the video - here are the major points raised (@=video timestamp)

- 1st attack, at Atibah al-Haboud hospital in Al-Hamidiya 6 km south of Maarat al-Numan (here on Wikimapia). Four strikes total are claimed - the first two at 9:02 and 9:05 am (and the third unexplained)?

- Geo-location from two video angles shows it is the building they call an MSF-supplied clinic that was destroyed and smoking around 9 am ...  from something that happened. They say it was a jet attack. They show video of the scene, that appears like the right time. If that's the real damage they show, it was powerful: I'd guess a car bomb, or a few heavy air-dropped bombs. Or a few larger surface-fired rockets/missiles. Most of the building is collapsed. One outer wall stands partly, but slumping. A corner stairwell-type portion is the only thing of size that really stands.If this really was a MSF-supported hospital, then one of those was destroyed, somehow.

- @2:02 -Around 9:45 (as reported, could be), after rescuers arrived, a strike (or two) seen on two video - one is described 4th Russian strike, and of a terrorist "double-tap" sort that targets rescuers. And they do run, as if the ruins would be hit again, as a jet is heard. @4:15 we hear a loud whoosh and boom, but see nothing, in either of two videos. Fakery would be complicated here - just audio editing would be needed, but also running, coordinated with the blasts, knowing sound effects would be added (we'll fix it in post). This is imaginative, but I don't suspect it's the case. Whatever the first blast was, this seems to be an airstrike.

-The loud blast has a few smaller, follow-on explosions. Are these cluster munitions? (big but few) or is this an ammunition depot exploding, perhaps? This deserves some more analysis by someone who could really offer a good opinion.

- It's not clear if they placed just where this strike was in relation to the hospital. It can be seen in frame, but the blast is somewhere else (see @5:02, sun and hospital ruins to the southeast, blast one km or more to the south). The other video is the same: people at the hospital film the distant plume rising. What was off to the south? About 2 km south, according to Wikimapia (see link above), is a stretch of the M5 highway to Damascus, with an "army checkpoint" (may be militant-run checkpoint now) on one side, and an electrical substation on the other side. There's little else but fields before that or further out. so I guess this strike was about 2 km south of the hospital, which was already in ruins anyway. Not much of a 4th strike on the hospital, and not very effective deliberate targeting of rescuers at the hospital. Still, the charges stand.  

- In later videos, there is better jet evidence than usual here, both audio and visual. It's not quite proven to me, but maybe close enough to agree on the point ...

@2:37 2 videos show strike on national hospital in the north of Maarat al-Numan, as soon as Atibah's director arrived, having left his ruined clinic around 11. Two cameras captured twin blasts near the hospital, and one view easily sets the time at about solar noon (MSF got 11:55 am) Lines of sight seem good. One view is clear, as MSF's analysis is, that the hospital itself wasn't hit.

 

@3:09 area indicated - not exact, but almost surely one hit was on the hospital grounds, a ways southeast of the main building, and the other hit a bit to the south, outside the grounds. There's little there but the road to the hospital and one small shack nearby - no likely militant bases or facilities there. 

@6:00 - a jet-shaped blur is seen for a few frames at the attack time. They think it's possibly a Mig-23, which only Syria uses, but that's extremely vague - it could be almost any jet from the pixels seen. And the pixels could be real, or added. It even seems to show payload dropping over the hospital. This seems almost too-good, but it doesn't look obviously fake, and I usually presume no CGI is used. But it is possible.This and the added jet noise would be to obscure the reality of an incoming surface rocket. But I'm leaning to this being real. 

- The lack of close-up of damage or specific claims of damage suggest MSF acknowledges the National Hospital was only "targeted," or hit near. If their work is correct, they show areas near the hospital were hit. So "another hospital that was targeted later the same day," but it was targeted poorly. Or maybe it didn't seem as expendable to the false-flaggers. Or ... The MSF-connected hospital director had just arrived, others may be following - was this perhaps a legitimate terrorist target of the mobile kind?

- unverified claims of Russian and Syrian jets taking off shortly before each attack (a rebel "observatory" claims to watch takeoffs, and might) @3:55 - Opp. sources claim they saw Russian jets take off from Hamayman airport, and carry out the first strike and watched a Syrian jet take off from Hama and hit the national hospital. It's not clear to me they really did, but perhaps. Do they have radar to follow it? Or is it just presumed (takeoff, then blast = hit by that jet)? Because it might be a false-flag rocket attack instead, timed to line up with a jet sortie, real or fabricated. But maybe those are the jets that did these strikes. Were they engaged in criminal operations, or in legitimate ones?

Summary

So the claims line up with real-world explosions, but the actual story makes as little sense as usual and remains open to question. Just to be evil and deny medical care to innocent civilians, whom Russia and Syria are constantly bombing, the Russians blow up a hospital, bomb it some more but miss by 2km, and have their Syrian lackeys blow up the replacement hospital ... but miss by a bit, twice. And good enough - they can get some fresh charges out of it and they're happy, right?

Each piece of jet attack evidence here could have one of these explanations:
- real air strikes against valid target that were near or in these places
- real strike, illegitimate target, by cited jet (Syrian / Russian)
- real strike, illegitimate target, by false flag jet (US-Coalition)
- recon or unrelated flight, synchronized with attack
- audio forgery, synchronized with attack
- video forgery, synchronized with attack
- whole attack video faked (sound and smoke plumes all edited in - why not, for logical fullness, let's list that)

I lean to one of the real jet options. Is it possible these were false-flag jets? Not likely, I should think, this far into Syria. However, that's been alleged in Russia: Sputnik, February 16, 2016 "Airstrikes on a hospital affiliated with Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), and a children’s hospital in Syria were carried out by aircraft departing the US Incirlik Airbase in Turkey, a member of the Russian upper house’s Committee on International Policy said Tuesday." The same accusation was lodged, regarding February 11 allegations in Aleppo.

But that needs a grain of salt, with the counter-claims for takeoff, including Russian jets, and neither version proven that I know of. It wouldn't look good, of course, if Russian sources (but not the MoD) denied their jets were there, if they actually were. Still, maybe they were and maybe it's still not criminal anyway - maybe some fool decided to deny it, instead of explaining. No one else has backed up these claims, that I know of.

So there's a strong counter-accusation, but I suspect, more than likely, these are Russian-Syrian attacks, against either legitimate or illegitimate targets. Probably legitimate, in my view, but the question seems an open one. MSF seems to think it's not. I'm curious why, because the evidence they present isn't adequate to consider the case closed.

Other Clues: The Victims

@1:47 - sounds like there was shift change at the hospital (?) at the time of attack (9 am, almost on the hour, as reported). So they had no current (?) patient count. So the "White Helmets" "civil defense" rescuers didn't know how many hey were digging for.

It's not clear why, but the video takes a moment to explain this. They could just dig for whoever, or use the last known count if they must have a good guess. But maybe they presumed there was no one and didn't dig, and that's why so many died? No, they're seen digging a bit, before they pull back. Did they stop then, since it was thought empty, and the danger was so high? That's Russian danger, terrifying even at 2 kilometers' distance. Who could blame them?

And so, perhaps, the unfortunate, randomly selected victims of Russian bombing mostly just died ... right under that rubble. Right? (recalling the other one was never hit, all fatalities should be here). How did MSF ever know 25 civilians were killed, and 11 wounded? The number is usually just handed in by local, Islamist-affiliated activists, and accepted with no questions. I'm pretty sure they don't know and can't verify who died how. I probably have a much better guess than they do.

Checking the VDC database, as I usually do, the victims are suspiciously similar to the usual for shelling anywhere, but a bit different. The note "Due to Russian air forces shelling of Doctors Without Boarders' hospital" appears with 16 killed on 2-15. Using just "doctors" in the notes, and given five days to find everyone, gives 22 total . All civilian. not a single militant killed, according to this. (in fact, no Idlib rebels killed by bombing at all 2-15,  nor from anywhere else but killed in the whole province.You can hardly hit zero rebels unless you're aiming for zero rebels. This was all about killing civilians! Illogical, sure, but a serious war crime!

- 16 men, 4 women, 1 boy, 1 girl
- named some mix of al-Staif and al-Ghajar = 5: 4 men and the boy (age unknown), from Al-Tih town (likely Al-Tah on Wikimapia)
- named Raheel = 3 men, from unclear, Idlib
- named al-Jadoe = 3 men, from Jarjanaz
- named al-Hallak, al-Nisr, Qeetaz, Azouz, al-Sahawaf, Khateeb = 1 man each (Qeetaz appeared among the earliest chlorine victims, from Maarat al-Numan, but with some confusion - see here - and a wife with husband's name, suggesting Christian, or just modern Muslim)
- named Hasan, Hamra, Dashash, al-Sawas = 1 woman each (poss. wives of other named men)
- unidentified = the girl, but aged 12 (a guess?)
- Mr. Azouz and the girl (likely named Azouz) are from Helbeh village, the others are from Kafrenbil, Khan Sheikhoun, Maarat Numan, others (as listed)

Some family lumping from patients and visiting family is likely enough, but these could also be unrelated hostages that were killed off. Lots of men there to support a male patient with al-Staif al-Ghajar group. What this might suggest is hostages, mostly men, but one complete family, another husband and wife, etc. They would likely of banned minority groups (mostly Alawi, but some Christians), and maybe a Sunni family related to an army officer or high official. Maybe if demands weren't met, they might put the captives in the hospital/militant base they suspected would be bombed, or put them there and bombed it themselves, or killed the people somewhere else and just blamed it on the hospital strike.

Or maybe, as MSF seem to take as the only option, all these people were getting innocent treatment there when the Russians blew the hospital up. I'm not in the same business some are of just ruling things out. 

Responding to Draister's 'Break the Silence'

By Adam Larson aka Caustic Logic
October 22, 2016
last edits Nov. 24

*November note: Throughout, an astute reader noticed, I misspelled Eric Draitser as Eric Draister. Apologies for minor dyslexia/quick reading. I had thought that was it for a couple of years and never checked.Also, my prediction of an "inevitable" Clinton victory for president quickly proved incorrect.

An Appeal to the Left, From the Gulf Within it

Eric Draister, founder of StopImperialism.org and host of CounterPunch Radio, recently wrote an article called Syria and the Left: Time to Break the Silence (Counterpunch,October 20). This calls out critically both to leftists who support the Syrian opposition or US intervention, and to those who support the Syrian government,  each in a different way. He predicted:

Undoubtedly there are people on both sides of this debate who, if they’re still reading (doubtful), are frothing at the mouth with rage as they prepare to send their hate mail or attack this article and me on social media.

Among those supporting the Assad government, Stephen Gowans posts a non-frothy rebuttal that's worth reading. I've seen some stronger opinions expressed in e-mails from supporters of Syria's government, but didn't dig through Twitter or anything. I'm sure there are several biting comments.

As for the other side, perhaps (I also didn't dig for these). But "unrepentant Marxist" Louis Proyect embraces the article as a "mea culpa", comparing it to earlier work by Draister that challenged accusations against Syria's government (see below) he now seems to accept. Proyect has made a long habit of insisting he's against US intervention, but maintains every provided moral reason for regime change and continued war with as much gusto as any Syrian opposition activist.To me, he's clearly either very confused, or a deliberate and likely paid disniformation agent. Unlike Draister, I see no value in reaching out to Proyect or others of his style of thinking. Proyect seems to think or hope Draister is now in the same camp. I hope not.

The fact is much of the populace, and even much of the "anti-war left" has been deluded into supporting this latest - indirect, but brutal and grinding - brand of regime-change campaign. Many who had opposed war on Iraq in 2003 support the anti-Assad fight now, and in 2011 rooted on the swifter mistake in Libya, perhaps just because a Democrat president has been at the helm. With the inevitable victory of Hillary Clinton coming up, naturally there's a fear escalated involvement in Syria is almost as inevitable. 

Draister is clear in his desire to stop this before it starts, and that's laudable. He spends some energy raising doubts among the war-supporting left while trying (too hard, in my opinion) to not appear a supporter of the "brutal dictator," or a possible "Putin troll." It's the John McCains, Hillary Clintons, Recap Erdogans, ... and I guess the Louis Proyects of the world  who need criticized the most for pushing a divisive anti-truth narrative or using it to harm people for some geopolitical gain. Folks like Eric Draister, it seems to me, are just trying to operate in the vast and confusing space between. Bridges need built, people need to be spoken to in their own language, etc.

This is a laudable kind of position to take in general - it won't be the purest truth, but has a better chance of reaching minds that need reached. And I sense that he's sincere in adopting this view, although it suggests he's missed some things. There are pitfalls to such an attempt at balance - like if an unexpected degree of religiously-inspired criminality appears in a slot one ascribes more rational motives to.  You expect x behavior from both sides, some sort of "there are no good guys" so-called "realism." But what if you don't quite get one of the sides as well as you thought?

Be that as it may, the question now before us is this: where do you stand on direct US intervention?

Against, against, against. In all forms and for any given reason. Indirect intervention too. They've lost all credibility and should not be allowed to meddle one iota from about five years ago at least. This question wasn't directed at me. "The left" in general, in the USA in particular, is about to be led - to some degree - to just this question, by their champ Hillary and with suggested answer of "yes," for some reason that will seem to make sense. Please, folks, try and notice this magic spell being cast, and refuse it vigorously!

Ignoring the other good questions for the opposition' supporters, ones I feel compelled to respond to: 

Protesters, Jihadists, and Syria-Russia Bombing

And while the revolutionary content of the rebel side in Syria has been sidelined by a hodgepodge of Saudi and Qatari-financed jihadists – the uprising began as a response to the Syrian government’s neoliberal policies and brutality, among other things – this cannot be taken to mean that countless innocent men, women, and children have not been maimed and killed by Syrian and Russian weapons, jets, and fighters.

Protests against neoliberal policies that were genuinely revolutionary: who said this? How can we know it was true as opposed to just sounding good? If true, how many of the protesters was it true for, and for how long? If they were predominantly liberals, why the quick slide into sectarianism? They were killing soldiers before the end of March, 2011, openly murdering Alawites in the street since mid-April at the latest, and chanting Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave since about the same time. And soon after, some stuff even Draister doesn't know about, some mentioned below.

My impression: at first both kinds of protesters were present, the liberals we could identify with in smaller numbers but put out front. As the sectarian Sunnis and their provocateur snipers took over, the liberals primarily stopped adding their voices to the furor and sided with the government against the terrorist menace, sponsored by an obvious (to them) foreign conspiracy. End of story, pretty much. Dateline: about June 2011 at latest.

Since then, they've primarily joined the government even, with loyal opposition parties allowed under the new constitution. These and their supporters on the street now stand by Syria and its now-elected president, and their friends and relatives serving in the conscription-based and representative Syrian Arab Army. The legitimate Syrian protesters of a few weeks in 2011 would appreciate our understanding and support as times have changed.

"(Jihadists have sidelined the "revolutionary" side, but) this cannot be taken to mean that countless innocent men, women, and children have not been maimed and killed by Syrian and Russian weapons, jets, and fighters.": Agreed. These are separate questions that need answered separately based on their own evidence. What could be taken to mean this is evidence that countless people have perhaps not been killed by Russian and Syrian bombs as alleged, and that something else has, at least in large part, been killing them this whole time, without being identified or condemned. And we have such evidence, some of which I'll mention below.

Shades of Gray and Specific Crimes

In the long and convoluted history of this war there have been precious few moments of clear and unmistakable moral judgment. If anything, the portrait of the war in Syria is colored in shades of gray, with little black and white to be found.

I'm a shades of gray person myself, but here I find startlingly dark shades vs. essentially white, at least in comparison. Realism doesn't always mean dividing the crimes down the middle. Character issues matter, and we have a representative, inclusive, secular government with every reason to not wreck the country they have to manage - and parties they trust and have invited to help - vs. - as Draister describes them, "a hodgepodge of Saudi and Qatari-financed jihadists," largely foreign but working with some Syrian Islamists as well, many of who are borderline suicide-bomber fanatics or who can walk away or hide in Turkey - and their foreign backers who get to bleed Syria by remote control.

The way to call this is effectively black-and-white, from a technically shades-of-gray perspective. And the black-and-white is upside-down from the way it's been hammered into our brains over the last years.

If you’re supportive of Assad then it’s a certainty that you’ve chosen to ignore or downplay the horrific violence of the bombings, the brutality of the torture chambers, and other unspeakable atrocities (I admit that I have often strayed too far into the latter) out of a desire to uphold the nominally anti-imperialist position.

That's not a certainty and it's not true in my case. In general, however, this is a real problem. Many folks ignore these allegations as inconvenient, or poke a few lazy holes of doubt and declare the claim sunk and discredited, or respond with bland "whataboutism" (what about US prison torture, etc.) I prefer to engage all such things and see what's up, on the premise of "what about this?" I encourage those in the "pro-Assad" camp along with me to more clearly address these issues even an ally like Draister gets stumped over. Our efforts so far have mostly been unconvincing, it seems.That's not because there's no truth to be found, but because most just aren't trying hard enough to discern it, or we do but it doesn't get heard. And I acknowledge it's not easy, if one is not in the habit.

He gives links with two crime categories he feels people are ignoring. I'll take those as good examples I'll address (again, in both cases):

"the violence of the bombings":
Independent (UK) report from 13 October cries 150 killed in 2 days bombing (Oct. 11-12) in Aleppo, "rescue workers say." It used to be "activists say," but they've got helmets now and might even rescue people sometimes, in between propaganda sessions. Draister probably doesn't buy the critiques of White Helmets as sectarian Jihadist allies, but can probably see how that's at least partly true. We should all understand why their claims are worth questioning, not just pointing to as facts.

As for the deaths, the opposition Violations Documentation Center (VDC) database shows only 67 Aleppo civilians killed by warplane shelling, even taking 3 days (Oct. 10-12). Is this a case where they cite the national total as the main news area's total? Not even quite that: nationwide, same 3-day span, only 97. (VDC records aren't necessarily complete, but get updated and are shown to be more detailed and credible than vague freeze-frame number-only tallies by SOHR or White Helmets)

Of the 67, 63 were killed in the cited 2 days, mostly in Bustan el-Qassr (the cited area of mass bombing). Oct. 11-12 deaths are all by Russian forces, as the VDC says: 46 men, 10 boys, 9 women, 2 girls. 7 men named al-Deeb were killed, with no children, and possibly no wives. This is the sort of weird demographics that underlie all alleged bombing massacres.

In that same span, the same bombing as usual said to kill ZERO rebel fighters in Aleppo. Really? Not a single strike aimed at and successfully hit a single rebel? The same results are seen in Sept. 19-Sept. 30 (12 days), and Oct. 16-17 - all times I've checked lately yield a combined ZERO rebels killed by mostly Russian bombing, to 585 civilians, primarily men, but with some whole families.

This prevalence of men can mean random chance, laundered rebel fighter deaths, or captive men, or a mix. I usually lean to hostages, including here. But in this case, it's quite likely we're also seeing lots of killed rebels passed off as civilians, to help "clarify" the moral stakes of bailing out Aleppo like we bailed out Benghazi, to avert a "bloodbath."

The arc of attack, well-mapped: relevant or not?

This is interesting because Draister called a similar pattern regarding last year's Douma market Attack, which he wrote about at Counterpunch but didn't mention here. That was a decent but not well-informed piece, raising some valid questions about the alleged fighter jet attack, and some invalid ones. He thought the reported 100+ fatalities being almost entirely men could mean they were rebel fighters killed in a government strike on some base of theirs. Proyect makes a fair case about Draister's sub-par analysis there - it's not hard to see four rockets hit public market areas, killing and wounding an unclear number. I trump them both with forensic evidence the markets were hit with terrorist (Jaish al-Islam) rockets fired from the south, not from a government jet, and for the victims - mostly men, but apparently civilians - being massacred already before those rockets were fired, obviously all by people working as a team. (see review)

The same pattern he noted, and was burned by his reading of, is a real oddity running all throughout the Syrian conflict. Time and again, dozens or hundreds are allegedly killed in random shelling, and they're usually 80-100% men. If these were laundered rebels, the war would have been over long ago. But, what else explains the strange gender distribution of the people living in the homes supposedly hit by careless government bombs? It's worth risking or sustaining a burn to wonder about that, as Draister did.

The problem runs way back. In Homs' Khalidiya district 138 people were reported as killed in their homes by random government shelling, in early Feb. 2012. Records show those 138 were 130 men and 8 mostly older boys. The counter-claim fits: they were minorities and government supporters taken hostage and then killed by the terrorists, in order to blame the government. (ACLOS) Prisoners would be largely men (often reckoned as 13+) or gender segregated anyway, and I kind of suspect this story is the true explanation. And I fear the same explanation might hold down though the years and to the present day, though with fighters mixed in too, in spots. For example, in Aleppo now, there's likely  a large number of dead fighters swept under the civilian rug. If so, the war may be over for them soon, and they might be too busy dying and running to finish executing all their hostages.

I don't suppose this reading will convince anyone who's sure Syrian and Russian shelling simply kills lots of civilians, and mainly men. They'll keep presuming this is how Syrians live, all segregated, and the regimes in Damascus and Moscow just keep bombing them to death, by accident or design, while hardly killing any militants in the same bombing. Why and how don't matter, just so long as the regimes are eventually made to pay. This is just the thinking underpinning the destabilization and bleeding of Syria. 

"Torture chambers":
For this, Mr. Draister links to the New Yorker piece on the "Assad Files" (April, 2016), which only indirectly connects to the "Caesar torture photos" story dating back two years earlier, which he might have intended to cite. I already tore up this later report with Regarding those "Assad Files": it seems the smuggled documents are legitimate and reflect only the government responding to a crisis, with reasonable measures re-painted in ominous and damning colors.

After digging for the juiciest material there is, the worst they could quote, and the biggest problem for Assad supporters, was one official speaking of some fairly extreme torture, which he heard a report of, and that he angrily demanded be stopped. Everything else is less clear than that, so apparently, they failed to find much. There was apparently no order connecting to the mass killing of prisoners supposedly proven by the "Caesar photos." But they fill in some gaps with supposed prisoners, steered to them by Qatari-sponsored activist groups and such, who implicate those same named officials with dramatic stories they tell. These stories may be prime evidence in future war crimes trials, "based on a true story" and just loosely.

The investigators remixing all this, like those who drafted the report supporting the claims of "Caesar," are professional regime-blames ("war crimes" investigators and/or prosecutors), getting paid by someone with a vested interest and deep pockets. They should be suspect of crafting  impressions of guilt where there may be no genuine basis for it. They might be credible and honest, but that shouldn't be taken as a certainty as one points to their work as a supposed fact. 

Further, the source they had speak with the New Yorker's writer, has a rather propagandistic and unlikely narrative. "Mazen Hamada" says he was arrested in 2012  for smuggling infant formula into Daraya, which was considered "terrorism." And he says that's why he was in a regime prison where he witnessed some scenes right out the "Caesar photos." 

These photos - a running story since January, 2014 - also exist, and remain poorly tackled by most supporters of Syria's government. There are the exceptions of at least Rick Sterling (Syria Solidarity Movement report) and myself (Fail Caesar series). My impression: they seem to be unidentified bodies given reference numbers; some rotted a bit before being documented and some were found alive and show signs of efforts to save them. About 40% of the photos aren't even shown, because they show killed soldiers and the scenes of rebel attacks. But among the 60% publicized (around 6,700 men and boys, and one token woman) it seems there are several kinds of dead people; some look like killed rebel fighters, and some soldiers killed and found out-of-context. Numbers suggest there were at least 10,000 unidentified bodies processed - if so, we're seeing only about 67% or less. Perhaps the missing half made it even clearer who these people were?

victims #215-3669 and 215-3670, w/Shia-suggesting tattoos

But most victims among those shown seem to be terribly abused prisoners, as alleged. They don't seem like government prisoners, however, lacking uniforms, but like terrorist hostages, gender-segregated like all those alleged bombing victims. They include many Shi'ites or Alawites (just going by tattoos) and at least some Christians. They were killed en masse, many it seems by a toxic gas like chlorine, after starvation and varying levels of abuse or torture. I believe the terrorists (likely Jaish al-Islam) gave each victim a false "regime prisoner ID #" on forehead tape before they were dumped for the government to find, and to be photographed that way by sympathetic insider "Caesar," or whomever he got the photos from, etc.

Not Mentioned

Further, we could add the sectarian massacres like in Al-Houla (May, 2012) and Al-Bayda, (May, 2013) with entire families slaughtered with great cruelty. But these were a while ago, and best evidence suggests terrorists carried these out while in charge of the massacre areas, killing families that supported the government, or converted to Shi'ism, with Alawites killed separately but at the same time. Or how about the supreme original sin of shooting protesters and police and army defectors who refused to shoot? All the same stories were untrue during the coordinated terrorist takeover of half of Libya in February, 2011. Why should we presume they're true in Syria?

Why aren't these mentioned, as Draister cites newer and more widely-accepted claims? Probably because he knows there are at least serious questions over "activists say," versions 1 and 2 aired from 2011-2013. It would better in arguing the case, whatever your reason for arguing it, to rely on the more nuanced claims that came after activists rounded that learning curve. Massacres no longer happen in town squares or private homes that rebels can access, as they can access half the country now. So their way to get evidently proven regime crimes is having the death come from the bottoms of aircraft above, or from within a controlled regime prison. 

 Assorted Responses

Words like “traitors,” “cowards,” and “terrorists,” are shamefully applied to ordinary Syrians fleeing to Europe and elsewhere in hopes of saving their families. Indeed, it is precisely this narrative that is at the core of the white supremacist, fascist ideology that underlies a significant amount of the support base for Assad and his allies (see David Duke, David Icke, Alexander Dugin, Brother Nathanel, Alex Jones, Mimi al-Laham, Ken O’Keefe, and on and on and on).

This strikes me as provocative and likely unfair. I've seen Mimi say she identifies as white and make arguably antisemitic comments, and there's David Duke. The rest I don't know. I really don't read around enough to bother refuting this "white supremacist, fascist ideology" claim. But I've got no stock in Alex Jones or David Icke anyway.

As for the refugees, they likely have a mix of motives, including terrorism and salafi networking, etc, besides innocent motives.

To the pro-Assad Syria fetishists, I ask: Will you continue to pretend that the only crimes and atrocities being committed are those veiled behind Old Glory?

I try not to be an "Assad fetishist," but might fit his definition. I for one don't say all - just most, or perhaps all serious crimes have been by the opposition side, be it ISIS or FSA, as far as I can tell. And it's not pretending, but an informed opinion based on the samplings we've taken and researched.

Are you comfortable in the knowledge that this war will continue on indefinitely so long as all outside actors continue to use Syria as merely a square on their respective geopolitical chessboards?

No. Outside actors - aside from those invited by the legitimate inside actor (Syria's sovereign government) clearly should butt out.

Will you continue to delude yourselves by refusing to accept the plainly obvious truth that no state or group has the best interests of Syrians at heart? 

I will continue, call it delusion if you want, that Syria's government wants what's best for its people. Russia's full motives may be more mixed, but they seem to be on the right side and carry the right spirit, so I refuse to accept they're a part of the real problem here. The USA, UK,  France, KSA, Turkey, other governments clearly do not want what's best for Syrians, and the sorry state of the country today is a testament to their plans getting the upper hand for years straight. The prevalence of false claims against the government has provided some moral cover for this.

Will you allow yourselves to be the useful idiots of carefully calculated political maneuvering?

Hell no, I hope. Question for Eric: Will you?

...our responsibility is to the people of Syria and to peace and justice.

Indeed, and truth is fundamental. This is why we owe it to them to question our own assumptions, consider the true problem as if we may not grasp it yet - because we may not.

Syria: Crushed Women in Rastan

Syria: Crushed Women in Rastan

On August 28, the Syrian Network For Human Rights reported: at least 2 women died in government warplanes missiles fired on Al Rastan city in Homs governorate, August 28, 2016.
الشبكة السورية: سيدتان على الأقل، توفيتا جراء قصف الطيران الحربي الحكومي بالصواريخ مدينة الرستن بمحافظة حمص، في 28 آب 2016

No further details. One woman is shown in a photo, sort of crushed and rolled to the edge as two concrete slabs came together in a building collapse. Presumably, the story is she was living there, as the dishes suggest, and when it was bombed, everything just came out like this. She might have been living alone and/or "in sin" to some - no dead husband mentioned, and look at those modern, tight pants, with spangles. She wasn't a real salafist, apparently. And that bright pink head-scarf ... or is it red and white pin-stripes? Or tie-died?

Looking closer ... beneath her head scarf is a large head wound we can only see part of. It seems fatal, and to be done while the scarf wasn't on - the fabric doesn't seem torn like her head is. And the color issue is all white cloth plus blood.

It's possible this is all from the jumbling violence where some reinforcing bar pierced her skull while the scarf was pulled back, and then later the it slid back to partly cover the wound. But it's also possible she was shot or stabbed in the head, had that wrapped up with a new headscarf, and her body was placed in some abandoned building - probably with its walls already gone. It might be arrayed with some dishes, all visibly along the edge, before the structure was collapsed on her body as a propaganda stunt. 

I think that's quite likely what happened; they just planted the body of someone they killed, because they're terrorist assholes. They figured it would all come out looking close enough. 

In case we get an alleged attack time here, note: photo is mid-morning (could be measured for solar elevation). Most blood is dry, but there was a lot, and the thickest of it is still tacky. The possibly blood-smeared object to the right is of some interest.  I don't know what that it - some kind of mattress?

Who was she? SNHR had said "at least two women" killed, suggesting both more people and more women were possibly killed.  VDC query: all civilians from Rastan killed Aug. 28 = 1: Ayda Hamdan, adult female, married, killed by warplane shelling, and no further details. The entry includes this "generic video" of others being treated in a clinic in Rastan for genuine-seeming but light injuries. There's no second Rastan woman. 

But there's supposed to be another woman.... VDC shows a total of three women from Homs province dying this day. And this same Rastan video is attached to one of those, from Der Baalba, (northern Homs city), killed the same way. One could presumes she died in Der Baalba, but warplanes don't shell there much. Was she displaced somehow, to Rastan, to then die along with this other woman? VDC query: all Der Baalba deaths on 8-28 = 3. That woman, and the other Homs woman, and her husband.

So that's presumably one of these three women we see squished here.

The married couple share the same family name al-Merei ( المرعي ) - suggesting not very traditional Islamic people. Women usually keep their fathers' names if devout Muslims, so the father and the children have one family name, and the mother has another. These kind of "Western-style," all-one-name families fare poorly for things like getting displaced within rebel-held areas, and then dying elsewhere under alleged Assad bombs in the kind of ignored, daily mini-massacres that really add up over years. See also Hayan Missile Massacre recently, near Aleppo: 2-3 wives with the same name (Qraitem) as 5-8 kids killed alongside them, and same as 3 men killed all at once two weeks earlier (all sorting and killing was, of course by regime aircraft...).

In this case, however, the man and woman are listed together, not separated like usual. Any children, however, seem separated and not dead. They're supposed to be spared, and can be re-educated. Also, I checked the name Marei, and it doesn't have much of a clear pattern - no recent child deaths, one man from Halfaya the next day, one man each from Aleppo and from Rastan  and one that's a "FSA" rebel, in the preceding weeks, etc.

But back to the Hayan case - that connected by one Qraitem man and many from another family killed earlier, in a June 4 barrel bomb attack with a boy somehow crushed between a concrete slab and a section of demolition chute. How that could happen is unclear, but some turned the photo upside-down to claim he was crushed by an un-exploded barrel bomb!

Below: Grisly pic, taken from here and turned right-side-up, and grisly notes:

Note, blood clearly drips down. But not much of it. He was probably dead well before the slab came down. Someone laid his body across the chute, after the massive wound across his upper face wasn't even bleeding any longer. Only when the slab came down was a little thick blood up in his sinuses jarred loose  to make this splatter.

Turning horribly-executed women and children into more victims of "Assad's" bombing ... it's that easy, or usually, even easier. In fact, this is one of the more elaborate methods I've seen.

Douma Market Attack: "Assad Bombs" PULLING Children Apart?

Douma Market Attack: Victim Analysis: "Assad Bombs" PULLING Children Apart?
August 27, 2015
(incomplete)
updated (full photo added) March 25, 2016

Assad bombs are PULLING children apart in #Douma and the world is silent! #دوما_تباد

That's not what the tweets say, but between what they show and what they say ... I still can't just slap it out there directly (and I'm even putting the crop of his face lower down). As long as the postings are up, I'll just link to those already sharing it. But ... 

Imagine being shocked by a horrible photograph that probably shows just that implausible scenario.  In Douma, Damascus suburbs, on August 16 - a day when only fighter jet bombing by the Syrian government is blamed for dismembering people, not any government militia massacre - this pre-teen boy had his arms torn off at the elbows, legs nearly torn off at the knees, shoulders damaged, face completely burned, clear through the skin, and ... no other marks, really. And he's got no concrete dust like shelling victims usually have - and which nearly all alleged victims I've seen lack, by the way. Another questionable shelling death (pending - he's being treated in a clinic, so ostensibly still alive).

The Picture, as Presented:

It's given as some part of an August 16 Douma Massacre, unclear. But at the outset, it's possible this image is mis-attributed, and not even from Syria. But I haven't seen it before, no one else I've asked has, and it shares burned face clues with several more established massacre victims (see Burned Faces) He's the worst example by far, if he's even an example of the same thing. The next worst is also a boy. The five men were spared such severity.All this to me says 'chillingly consistent.'

* https://twitter.com/husseinegyptia1/status/632945888017559552
This may be the original, or earliest posting on Twitter.  HusseinEgyptia1, maybe Egyptian. But he and a few others at least insist this was in Douma, Syria. Text translated: # Douma_perish.  Complained to God  # Massacre_Douma #Douma # Syria +18

* https://twitter.com/shmhd1/status/632999110132563968
Text: (Google translated) And those of our children. Do not blame the Syrian Mafl after today !! # Douma_perish
The tag seems to translate to the English version currently buzzing, #Douma_Exterminated - like it's maybe already too late.

(more postings, etc. forthcoming. Actually, I didn't save many ... inviting comment submissions for postings, related material, and thoughts.)

The picture and some screen grabs are saved though in case everyone or Twitter pulls it as the evidence of a horrifying terrorist crime I think it is. There's even little need for most to copy that url and see this sick image, but this is the post for those who do need to see and double-check. It's a subjective call; many rebel supporters, for example, will have no problem shutting down entire lobes of their brain and resting assured "Assad's bombs" did this.

What I Think it Shows:

It shows as apparent teen or pre-teen boy whole, his whole non-intact body minus feet, with underwear on, for decency and PR, but nothing else. This full view reveals: a massively torn apart right knee, just exploded, kneecap, bone, tendons and muscles stretched out a good several inches, all still connected but far out of place. There's a lesser rupture-type wound on the left knee, but both legs are technically there, down to the toes (note: we don't see the feet, or clearly the ankles, as the picture cuts off short. But his left foot wears a white sock, and the right has indistinct bruise-like injuries to the shin)

Both arms are torn off (missing) from  around the elbow, some forearm bone (the thinner one, I think) splaying out on the right side, along with torn tubes and cables, and skin. He also has shoulder and upper chest injuries, kind of along the collarbone (unclear if burns, tears, or what, and mostly blocked from view).

His face is completely burned raw. At right, small res, cropped, blown-up a bit. The burns start right at the edge of his face, like a mask. Was he painted with napalm cream and lit up? Why wouldn't he shield his face with his hands? Oh, yes, they were gone, at some point. Order of operations here is unclear. One would hope it was all done after death, and maybe so, but the medical performance suggests none of it was done after death.

Update, 2016: The tweet having been deleted, I'll make sure the full image is still available and re-post it below, but small.

By appearance, I cannot shake the impression that this boy  was drawn and quartered - pulled apart between two vehicles he was tied to, driving opposite directions. Usually, that doesn't happen, but here ... are there psycho terrorists in the area capable? Or "Shabiha"? It takes good tying and two trucks, plus depravity, and access to the victim.

This kind of killing would have limbs sever violently at the joints. Is that what we see here? Knee, knee, elbow, elbow, and maybe shoulders/collarbone, with the stronger joints (knees, hips, shoulders) just challenged, stretched to near a tearing point. (note: we can't see the state of his hips here, but they might look disjointed/elongated - in fact his whole body seems longer than it should be). After the weakest link is torn through, the pulling stops. So only one set of joints totally gives; here, and maybe normally (who's up on dismemberment studies?) it was the elbows. 

Now really ... however mad this "dictator Bashar Assad" might be (and I suspect it's exaggerated), which of his bombs is going to do all this to a boy, deep inside rebel territory, timed to line up with a new headline-level Assad-massacre marketing campaign? I think this is a big, ugly, smoking gun. It's got potential at demolishing yet another anti-Syria lie.

But ... that alone begs for second opinions. I'll try to critique it myself, but like I said, I can't shake that impression. Maybe I'm too pissed and convinced to think straight right now. Is this how Islamist feel before they set out to join Daesh, al-Nusra, Jaish al-Islam, etc.?

In the War Context
(based on my reading panning out...)

As noted, this image is not widely presented, that I can see yet. That might be for some reason. The few postings I saw were on the 16th and 17th, limited even in Arabic-language channels, and maybe not at all outside of those.

Some Arabic readers are more anti-rational and ready-to-kill than average. There may be a few more on their way to Syria now to help kill Alawites because of this particular photo from the latest "Assad bomb massacre." If so, it's either because they don't get it and they're pissed off idiots, or because they do get it and it seems like a fun time.  It's hard to tell which motive it is in each of tens of thousands of cases, and it hardly matters in the end.  

And this, I think, is about how the Syria recruitment cycle has worked for four years now, driving membership in and upping the brutality of the almost entirely Islamist-oriented multinational forces. Enabled in so many ways, these are still torturing Syria today, four years after "ambassador" (ambassassin?) Robert Ford first denied any armed gangs in Syria. 

And glossing the surface of the process as usual, even without seeing this horrifying photo, folks in suits at the UN instantly expressed "horror" at this and all types of terrorist execution of almost exclusively male victims - over 100 civilians - again and "unacceptably" killed by Assad's fighter jets. A triple-digit number seems to be the magical code, as with the Houla Massacre, now also debunked. 100 dead always equals Assad blame at headline level, and so obviously his bombs did this and anything else, like the four girl victims I've found images for, 3 with hacked open skulls and none looking like shelling victims.

It's hoped this vague and familiar "horror" will finally transform into a Libya style no-fly zone to challenge those unchallenged Assad magic jets, like they did Gaddafi's air force for bombing protesters.

FSA Terrorists are PULLING children apart in #Douma 

and the world is silent! #دوما_مجزرة

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Of course "the world" is worse than silent, actually. They're calling for another "No Fly Zone" and thus the fulfillment of the Islamist dream - another U.S.-led forced collapse of a national government in the MENA region.