Idlib Chemical Massacre: White Fog Explainer

Idlib Chemical Massacre 
The When And Where
White Fog Explainer
May 28-29, 2017
(incomplete - edits 6-10, 7-10)

In the whodunnit debate over the alleged sarin airstrike against Khan Sheikhoun on the morning of  April 4, it seems to me Neither side has given adequate attention to this subject. There's an expanding white cloud at the time of the attack, and later a dense fog over the same area. That's reported by activists as sarin nerve agent, but as I'll show, this is a dubious and poorly-thought-out claim. The other side, so far, has either presumed no connection, or just not clearly thought about the possibility.

This subject might be important, and while it's tedious and took a while, I feel it's worth it to help advance our understanding. My intention here, as it has been, is to propose a "false-flag" attack by local terrorists, in a theory that accounts for all available evidence as possible (unless and until it's proven unrelated or fake). As usual, all verbal accounts are open to question, but not to be ignored, and visual evidence is given preference when it's available. And so I will try to present opposition claims and assess them as carefully and fairly as possible - so in the end, when their story is shown to fail, it can't be said that's from any unfairness on my part. 

I really tried to see how this sarin bomb fog story might make sense, and nothing plausible seems to work. I establish this early on, and then spend some time analyzing the visual evidence to propose in some detail what I think might well have happened.

Re-Introducing the Scene

Below are two panoramic composite views from two videos filmed around 7 am, said to show the chemical attack at that time (both were posted for the first time around 7:20 and 8 am on the day on the 4th). (see also the when and where for details on this and other temporal-spatial aspects)

Top: post-attack "3 plumes" video. Below: the later spread of the alleged sarin vapor across the whole town. Their alleged video order is clear, but the time lapse isn't. The similarity of sunlight angles makes clear it can't be much time; 15-30 minutes seems a good initial guess.
Both scenes are filmed from the same locale, facing south from well north of town, and roughly lined up here. They show (left-to-right)
- blast plume #1 (drifted away later),
- plume 2 nearby (same),
- the white cloud we'll focus on here (green box), which by video is expanding in a billowing manner in the top view, with the later fog seeming densest in about that same area,
- the tel, or low flat hill (with an invisible minaret in the middle in the top view - it's in plume 2's shadow),
- blast plume #3 well to the southwest of those (likewise drifted away later).
- also, dense fog appears further southwest (seeming to flow from the purple box), with no clouds or blast plumes seen there earlier.

The emphasis here is the connection between that white cloud and that fog. Is this, as opp claims, the sarin bomb's payload spreading on the wind to kill random local civilians?

Important note: none of these spots correlates with the famous crater in the street near the grain silos and the city's central bakery in the town's north. This (with Hadi Abdullah, reporting around 1pm that day)  is the only spot so far shown and mentioned as the release point for sarin. But the space above that area is simply not included in either view above, being well off-frame to the left in both cases.

Was there a blast plume there? There shouldn't be, for an effective sarin release as alleged. Was there a low white cloud? Something else? Or nothing? The video just doesn't say. Keep this in mind.

Cloud-Fog Time Interval

First, I need to set a time interval between the video scenes. My initial comparison was unclear, suggesting the bottom view was later in some ways, earlier in others. Solar azimuth (compass direction to the sun) seems about the same, and hard to get a clear and logical reading of. Solar elevation clues, however, show clear and consistent differences, suggesting the fog scene is slightly later in the day.

Trying to measure  part of the clearest-seen minaret, I got the mess at right. Balcony shadows and glare on the domed top both suggest some kind of higher elevation in the fog video.

Two low walls are clearer in having their shaded portions shift downward (below), but these can't be measured. For now I have to estimate the elevation difference is about 4-5°. The best time for the attack video is around 6:47 (the alleged time, and at least very close to the real time, by sunlight angles). A half hour after sunrise, the sun was 5.6° above the horizon (but still a bit below the features of this tall minaret, so still shining up, I guess). The later view would then be 7:07 (9.6°) to 7:12 (10.6°). That's about 20-25 minutes between videos.

So, if these scenes are connected, that's the order they come in, and that's the basic time frame between. That fog has to appear in about 20-25 minutes. That's too much for some to swallow, and so far, here are the four main options I've considered, coming from opposition activists, from my own interpretation of that plus the visuals, and two other options offered along the way.

White Cloud and Fog: Different Possibilities
Two Arguments for Irrelevance

Option 1) the white cloud is irrelevant, and the fog is a natural morning mist. Such a mist probably won't form that quickly, just after a bombing (or dissipate that fast, for those insisting on a different order, although that makes more sense). So this option all but requires they be different day videos, which is unlikely (same basic time of day and year close to April 4 by sun angles, no differences in vegetation or scenery, same wind direction, different and complementary vapor-fog issues, and both never before seen). I could cite the strange similarity to the rebel claims, but I suppose in this scenario where they had fog and/or attack videos from different days sitting around, they crafted the claims to the fake video. Still, I don't buy it.

For those remaining at this point, the rest of this post may seem totally irrelevant. But until a date mismatch is proven (I predict never), I'd argue it's worth considering at least in the sense of "according to the accepted evidence," which may fall apart on analysis.

Option 2) the white cloud is irrelevant, part of seen blasts, and the fog is more attack-related smoke that forms a haze. This is a smarter theory, aired by most of my friends and research associates. Powerful blasts do often eject whitish plumes along ground level, in addition to the rising main smoke cloud (example). The distance is questionable, and probably impossible as I have it placed.So I suspect this is its own phenomenon, but so far, some disagree.

Either way, residual smoke and dust lingering near the surface and drifting on the wind is surely part of the picture; the stuff that rose high with heat would remain there and drift away, but particles that never did that would settle somewhat and form a haze. However, while the  appearance might be about right, the amount of it, and shape of the filled areas relative to a couple of non-blast spots raise questions about this as a complete answer. There may be much more to it.

Option 3) Opposition story: 
Let's spend more time on this one. They claim the expanding white cloud is the, or a, sarin vapor cloud, from a bomb dropped  by the passing jet(s). The fog seen 20-25 minutes later is the same very dense cloud, once expanded. If this is the same scene we see on video, and it sounds like they're claiming it is, this has to be called out off the bat.

Wrong Kind of Spread: I'm not really an expert, but as I gather, a realistic spread from a one-time release following on a sarin bomb drop will have a fairly predictable shape and behavior. Charles Wood did some great theoretical gas mapping for the 2013 Ghouta incident at ACLOS. He knows at least a bit about these kinds of things. I discussed this with him, and he says the kill and danger zones for any sizeable sarin release is larger than I thought, on the scale of a kilometer to kill, and maybe up to 14km for lesser effects. The shape of the affected area will be sort of elliptical or oval. This is caused by the roughly circular initial release cloud, maybe 10 meters wide or so, drifting on the wind.  I suppose really it just diffuses, but with the middle staying stronger, rounding off the fuzz into an oval is fairly close.

That's all it does - get released once, then drift on the wind, expanding as it slowly settles or evaporates, harming as it can along the way with weakening of its effects, especially along the expanding edges. It should take about 2-3 minutes for any visible plume to drift off the distant video's field of view. No more sarin would follow that.

At right, a crude graphic to show this idea - not accounting for amount, exact plume size, exact spread or distance, just the basic idea, and using a polygon instead (limitations). The center line runs one kilometer from each release point we're considering, on a heading of 45 degrees (wind). The true angle could be more northerly.

One km is just the deadly range; lesser effects would go on much further. I also made the main areas probably too wide by a good margin, just to not overdo the point. We'll see some elongated but narrow field just along the wind's direction. Nothing about this will push against the wind and spread in all directions.

Note: All agree they fog came out of the bomb after impact, starting at ground level; it wasn't the more deadly aerial dispersion used in professional sarin bombs were designed with in the Cold War, like the kind Human Rights Watch fingered with almost no evidence at all (Soviet-made KhAB-250, apparently with a non-functioning proximity fuze). And for what it's worth, the alleged radar tracks provided by the US Defense Department show the jets never flew directly over the crater, just 2-3 km south (see the when and where). If so, they'd have to use missiles, not any air-dropped bomb. And this better analysis shows it's more likely a regular ODAB-500 air bomb remains we see. How that all adds up is another story. Let's back to the one at hand.

Two release points are shown here, and I'll explain that soon, as I try here to be overly fair to the opposition claims. So, let's say they have 100 kg or more released by this hypothetical Assad bomb, and there were two of them in this area, and they had an extra-wide initial dispersion, with fat plumes like I show.

Still, I don't think that can explain what we see. The fog is just too massive and widespread, and it's not a match with the white cloud or with the southwest fog spot, which show or suggest a prolonged, massive release of vapor, vigorously pushing in all directions, even against the wind at its origin. Even with the expansion seen with the white cloud, it would have to continue for many minutes to fill the area seen, probably for the full 20-25 minutes (I try to map this below, to clarify the point). What Assad bomb can keep spewing sarin fog for 20-25 minutes? I imagine none of them, and this must be something else.

I could invent them a new type of mass-vaporizing sarin barrel bomb. But I just don't feel like going this far. So far, they've shown debris for something more mundane and incapable instead.

But I will skip overly-literal readings of their claims to let the opposition have a best case scenario, between words and imagery, for a chance at working out. Considering the further problems they present with making sense of their claims, this is the only way to keep their story from dying too quickly, to stay engaged until the deepest debunk is found, so even any improved versions 2 and 3 they come out with will be set to fail before they can even walk.

How Many Sarin Clouds Reported? This Reurters article cites Hussam Salloum, a jet-tracking activist, saying a single Su-22 "dropped three conventional bombs, and a fourth one that made little sound at impact but produced a cloud of white smoke." That left "three columns of dark smoke and the white cloud nearer to ground level," which is linked to the sarin release. Note there's no room here for another white cloud, with just four bombs. And note that conventional high-explosives blasts cannot be sarin release points (the heat of detonation would destroy the fragile nerve agent. That will require a low-heat release of vapor (small droplets in suspension, because it's a liquid, not a gas). And this will work best with night-time or dawn attacks, when it's cooler. This was at dawn, which makes sense.

Referring to this alleged vapor, Salloum said "the smoke was white and thick" when it was a cloud among the blast plumes. But then, as Reuters passed on, it "began to spread out across the town, until there was a layer over the town." It's like he was really there, or saw the videos.

He seems to be describing, as seen, plume 1, plume 2, the white cloud, and plume 3. As noted, the famous crater near the grain silos, the one spot everyone specifies as where the sarin was released, is not included in that view. If that's what he means, this fails too badly for my liking. It misses one of two important points, either the famous crater, or the white cloud. Maybe he just missed something?


As Human Rights Watch reported, activist Ahmad al-Helou definitely "saw the plane drop a bomb and the bomb falling until it hit the ground." It hit "in front of the bakery," which HRW clarifies means the famous crater near the grain silos. It didn't detonate, but "he saw the bomb kick up yellowish smoke that spread in the prevailing wind." (HRW report)

Is yellowish smoke on the wind the same as an expanding white cloud? Or are they talking about two different things in two different places? It's not clear. Perhaps Salloum an Helou both mean the bakery strike, and the video just didn't catch it. If that was whitish and expanding, it's similar to the one we do see near the tel. But then neither mentioned that spot, and it must be something else similar but unrelated.

But this is not the fairest. Because of the established wind direction, that would leave no plausible origin for the sarin said to kill all the victims perfectly upwind of that spot. The crater site is nearly irrelevant - the wind would blow its alleged sarin over the farmlands and very few homes, including none of the ones reported. The people cited must have been (allegedly) killed by sarin from the other spots. That's why I'm leaving all possible release points on the table, to not make it too easy to slay this terrorist lie.

So to be more than fair, let's say there was a second pass, a second jet, or somehow more than four bombs. Let's say there are two white clouds in the town's north, and Salloum and Helou perhaps each reported one and missed the other, or they both missed one of them. 

And then there's the southwest fog area (purple box above), with no visible cloud at first, but later a giant smear of fog from there along the wind. They don't mention this either, and it's possible to just miss it that far out. So between words and images that's at least two and perhaps three alleged release points. 2-3 sarin bombs plus three conventional blasts means at least 5 or 6 bombs/missiles in total. They may claim just this eventually, as their original story falls apart, so let's get ahead of the curve.

As we'll see below, the fog seen could then reach the placed victim locales; the white cloud's portion at least, between expansion and wind, is somewhat likely to coat that area, depending on the finer points. But are we proposing the Syrian air force dropped two or three fog machine sarin bombs? Each must have held... a lot of this sarin, and some unknown mechanism to dispense it in rolling masses for probably 20-25 minutes. If this preposterous weapon exists, then maybe it's how Assad could actually kill all these people with his dirty terrorist-grade sarin. Otherwise, it's just not possible, and something else has to explain this fog.

Option 4) My False-Flag Theory
The white cloud, and at least one other like it, become the fog seen 20-25 minutes later. I propose this, if not as gospel than as worth testing out. It's not clear what the vapor/mist/smoke/fog/gas really was, but it didn't come from the passing jets. It's most likely a visual effect concocted to line up with the false flag rocket attack, which had been timed with the passing surveillance jets.

What this is, I don't know. I was seeing some kind of powerful and capable "fog machine" in each of the two-or-more spots, but people tend to think of a music show or haunted house type of device and scoff at that, so ...

I've though of simple pressurized steam made using boilers and lots of water, that might form a fog in cool conditions. But the high-drifting mist we see might be too light for that, more like the toxic white haze from insect fumigators (video - warehouse fumigation in the US). It's blown out at high pressure, persists, expands, and quickly fills this contained but very large space. Imagine five guys with these, or some giant truck-mounted version. It would be loud, but maybe running indoors or muted somehow, with a solid tube blowing just the vapor and not the noise out over the town.

Unusual chemicals could be used, but consider just the common types used in fumigation scenes like the above and in homes in the United States at least: sulfuryl fluoride (Wikipedia), for example, has an ILDH (immediate danger) rating of 200 parts per million. It's colorless and odorless in itself, but "Inhalation of sulfuryl fluoride is hazardous and may result in respiratory irritation, pulmonary edema, nausea, abdominal pain, central nervous system depression, numbness in the extremities, muscle twitching, seizures, and death." That's quite similar to what's reported.

And then, added later: here's a some machine rebels used in Aleppo, with burning tires as the base material. Areas can be filled with devices like this. This was used back in November to lessen visibility of alleged attack jets, or as the video puts it, as a "smokescreen no-fly zone." It may have also been used to generate the smoke for false air attack reports. And here in Idlib, it could be the same thing used in a smoke-screen operation, to cover a false-flag terrorist chemical massacre, in pursuit of a Libya-style "No-Fly Zone."
 
Whatever and depending on the method, this could be used to spread a number of substances for a number of effects. I presume it's primarily for visual effect, to be seen on video after the rocket blasts. But other effect they might try for include:

1) actual sarin effect, using pure (or impure) sarin (not likely at all - the volume is immense, and far more would have died)
2) something laced with trace amounts, or something that might test similar to sarin (possible - and they still say what turned up is "sarin or a sarin-like substance," perhaps some common organophosphate pesticide, depending on the kind of test they used.)
3) something to mimic the nasty sarin they're now openly blaming on Assad (see the sarin evidence - it's yellowish, smells foul/strange/disgusting, burns the eyes and lungs, and allegedly causes paralysis and 'foaming at the mouth')
4) something random meant to kill (not likely - deaths were needed, but killings could easily be done somewhere else more controlled, and probably were)

Or it may be no effects but visual; it's just a man-made fog, and all stories to the contrary are lies. That, option 3, and then option 2 are my favored possibilities at the moment. But putting aside just what it is, we can see it's white (or very pale in color), very copious, drifting on the wind, and covering a large area that seems worth mapping out.

Mapping the If

If it's option 3 or 4, and the white cloud and the fog are related, - the time difference estimated at 20-25 minutes for that cloud to expand into that fog be it sarin from a dropped bomb, or unknown mist from an unknown fakery method. We can get a better idea of which makes more sense, as we often can, by making good use of the visual evidence provided.

<add 7-10>The location of the white cloud, and thus what it likely is, remains debated. Michael Kobs on Twitter feels it's part of blast plume #2, and so next to it. To me it looks different, and has always seemed much further south, next to the tel. The details below support that, appearing like the cloud is in the tel's wind shadow (as the breeze blow from the southwest). The most likely area is centered on a possible school or large building with a walled courtyard, and specifically on a small outbuilding at the corner of that. From a scene photo, the corner where I suspect the white cloud originated is boxed in white.<end 7-10>

White Cloud Expansion vs. Fog Spread

I've been asked how can the top scene in my starting graphic can lead to the second scene in the apparent lapse time. My answer has been and remains simple; the expanding cloud would keep expanding in different directions, and smear away on the wind to the northeast. With 20-25 minutes of that, an area of this middling size and beyond could easily be coated.  

Bellingcat member Timmi Allen video trying to claim this shows a wind to the right (on Twitter). The responses didn't agree very well, and all things considered, we're clearly seeing some internal expansion here, not wind. The wind most could see is the same one you can see in general - to the left - and not to the right, as the majority of the expansion would suggest, if that were any clue to the wind (aside from a lack of it, maybe - this is in the hill's wind shadow)

I used a more detailed image with different lines to place this expansion on the map. beige, minaret - orange: app. left edge of seen vapor (stays steady) - purple: app. right edge at start - light blue: app. right edge 17 seconds later - green line (almost on blue): app. start of hill slope. Mapped out, and adding a hair of growth towards the camera, that's decent swelling for a quarter of a minute.

Also we can note if the wind is from the southwest (it is), this is in the wind shadow of the tel. Its north corner near the orange line would be most susceptible to wind smear, as we see, while the inner blue line side can expand with less wind, as we see.  Wind aside, it's probably trying to expand in all directions, but likely more to the right/west at this moment.  Would it keep billowing that way the whole time, or vary it direction? That's not clear.

Rounding 17 down to 15 seconds, that seen expansion is shown below (0 and first box out at 0:15), with possibly consistent 15-second expansions from there traced out up to five minutes (presumptions: some right expansion, random directions mixed, plus the wind to the northeast. Then more roughly I use that to map a possible 10, 15, and 20 minute expansion. The latter would bring this mysterious mist into the zone of affected homes we've placed. I don't really know the volumetrics and stuff, if this doesn't quite make sense, but it seems plausible to me. A good start to a discussion, maybe. At that rate, the areas of alleged victims could easily be reached and the whole north of town (not a big town) coated within the 20-25 minutes between videos. (notes: these shapes try too hard to reach the red dots. Also there should be more right-shift in all the outer rings. The furthest red dot to the left keeps losing out badly at fitting into this picture, and it's an important dot.)

So it could matter ... in a visuals-consistent (reliable) version of option 2 or 3, that fog would reach the victims' homes. But as explained, it's not consistent with option 3 under normal circumstances, since sarin bombs don't just pour the stuff continually for tens of minutes. 

And here's how it looks anyway on video,from a distance to the north - apparent fog density (as much from angle of view as from actual thickness at any spot) considered across the field of view. The 2 green lines mark the densest area of fog in the middle, with the middle minaret marked in blue - 4 yellow-green lines mark middling and thinner zones to the left and right of that. Mapped beneath: heavy white lines for thick area, etc. The west edge at the hill cuts off visibly, but east clearly has copious fog continuing off the northern view's left edge, so continuing an unclear distance to the northeast.

The actual north-south boundaries of this fog area are pretty unclear. The north is what matters, and all we can say is it's on the south side of some ridge we can see in the distance view. That seems to run just north of the curving (Corniche?) street here, traced in purple.

I traced a possible cloud shape in yellow-white, considering expansion, the wind, and the hill's wind shadow. By this, the placed homes would be between the green lines and across the left of the image from there, roughly as shown, and then labeled for relevance. The places, if not the actual people, may have been in that fog. Again to be overly fair, I tried to fudge the expansion north enough to explain the reported death sites and area. It's not that easy. Different versions include some, all, or none of the homes. Effective spread could be more or less than any of the versions shown here. I don't really know.  

But the white cloud site's expanded fog could have reached the reported homes. This is clearly significant, but doesn't prove anything in itself, considering all the unknown factors we're dealing with and the open questions, including:

- how could a sarin bomb in any location do this?

- where are the other dead people closer to the cloud's origin?

- Why are they only reported near - but not at - the far edge of its possible spread, in a strip that's also perfectly upwind from the irrelevant crater?

- again, this wasn't the allegation anyway - they've never shown the site of this possible sarin release or spoken of it. I had to propose this for them in order for their story to even possibly work. Why? Is there something embarrassing at that origin spot, perhaps just inside the fenced courtyard of ... what is that, a school? The kind usually shut down and taken over by Al-Namechange Front as a militant base?

SW Fog area
This is something no one else seems to notice, but there's a whole other field of fog that's appeared in the same 20-25 minute span between videos. There are a few possibilities for what this is, and they're the same as above. It's also has a distinct shape we can see because of the general slope of that area, that includes a good-sized hill on the left here that divides the fog as it apparently drifts northeast (left and towards the camera). Here it splits into more east, and more north, or towards the camera. 
Using Bellingcat's FoV study, placing the green lines to rough proportion - on the left, beginning of the serious hill that divides the fog, and close by, the edge of the tel that blocks the rest of the view. To the right, the apparent edge of this fog field. That app. big building that pops out (above "primary spread" label) would help set the area if we could identify it. Marked in yellow below, this seems to be two large buildings in an area lining up so the right one mostly obscures the left one. That jumble is the furthest things out on an up-slope, with empty fields behind them. Here's a sloppy graphic that shows my work on where to find this place in the gold box.

Having that set, can determine roughly how far south this will be. Next, how wide does it appear across the field of view? Tracing that from the known locale on the right angle - measuring pixel proportions for different spots -

compared to topo map to help set the shape of where it divides, and using that hill to set the origin point to its west - all lines up, and this is pretty close that what we see, if there was a satellite view of it.

All considered, I suppose the actual release point is further upwind than any of the spots I indicate here - further south of the dividing hill, and further west.  So the original fog area would be larger than shown anywhere here.

<add 6/10>Upon closer inspection, the area scribbled on the topo map is almost exactly right. Strange things are afoot at the farmhouse right there - see SW fog area oddities.<end 6/10>

North and South Areas Mapped

Do they have an improved version waiting to come out? If we amend, include implicit video claims - the bakery crater, the 'white cloud, and the spot SW of town, perhaps another - the only spot they've noted so far doesn't matter, but the others they might now mention, belatedly. If it's built-in at the start and latched onto later, but ignored in-between - is that just a goof-up, or a sort of long game they're playing with investigators like myself? In case it's the latter, here we are getting ahead of that possible curve.

Could they coat the whole town like this? The video suggests they did. What's required in between is they poured their fog continually for the unseen span of 15-30 minutes. Do we think this makes sense?

This is a strange pattern to set up intentionally. With two of the three spots primarily covering just the outskirts, and the bakery crater being downwind of the white cloud site, so its plume pretty much continues that same spread. To kill people, or even to cover area where many live, this is a poor use of whatever that is.

A fourth release point would make sense in this context, and a reasonable spot has already come to attention, indicated with a question mark here. That's the mysterious small cloud of black smoke somewhat near to plume 3 (not clear just how far north or south along the line of sight, nor therefore how big the plume is - but most likely north and not big). This is shown below, on the right side from plume 3 (facing south). 

This seems attack-related, but neither a HE blast nor a supposed sarin cloud. Is that the gunpowder-type mini-charge to open a sarin bomb's valve? Or fuel smoke, maybe the generator to run a "fog machine" being started up? This whole area seems to be on a down-slope, as well as mostly hidden behind the tel from the northern views. So a fog field just as large as the others could be hiding in there, perhaps wrapping around the east side of the tel and merging with the mist seen there.

Be it two fields, three, or four, activists have avoided showing us any of the 20-25 minute spread of the stuff that caused them. Their story requires that happening, and it would have kept happening for some time. But it seems no one filmed the growing crisis, from a distance or up-close. They only filmed the very start with the white cloud (because you have to to show the bomb plumes and hear the jets departing to "prove" it was an airstrike), and then what seems the drifting mass after fresh production has stopped. Maybe that's because it looked fake in between, like a couple of fog machines or giant area fumigators on hyperdrive? They cut to the  unnatural amount of man-made fog is just drifting in a more natural way, as if it was just released by those bombs, as if it isn't 20-25 minutes later here before they're done releasing it...

Conclusion:

I haven't moved far from my initial impression that these videos matter to the allegations they illustrate - the white cloud is odd, expands - the later video simply shows it expanded, with at least one other area doing the same. And for all my going out on limbs for their story, it still fails with strange lapses of reason that real events just don't have. In summary, some of the problems that stand even after we try for a best-possible explanation:

* The witnesses only talk of the irrelevant spot, showing the crater and weapon debris at the bakery crater, and providing stories of nearby victims. They  do not show what hit near the tel, nor in the southwest area, nor at any other potential sarin bomb site. They don't show debris or a crater, provide nearby victim stories, nor even mention these spots clearly. On that basis alone they could be discounted, but that's not the kind of exercise I'm running here.

* Of all the covered areas, perhaps half the town, still victims are reported only in one strip of a few dozen homes that's still better described as upwind of the one specified release point. Even imagining other versions. it's only possible to include those among hundreds of fog-coated homes all across the town where no one was reported dead. That just doesn't make sense.

* They do not show the telltale fog spread actually happening, missing some 20 minutes of oppotunity to show us. Maybe that's because it was deemed too unrealistic in action. They just showed the after effects, perhaps - once the process of special effects fog creation was stopped, after 20 minutes or more.

* And the main short-version thesis, I guess, is this cannot be a bomb of any known kind, spraying enormous amounts of sain vapor for 20-25 minutes. It's more likely to be a simple concocted visual effect, as pat of an especially big and important allegation that would need supporting evidence like this. (more logical would be better, but Islamists aren't the best in that regard)

If this is their important visual effect, why didn't they show more of it, even after the wrong-looking process was completed? White Helmets with gas masks and suits existed, but aren't seen running in it to save people anywhere, with or without fog. Maybe that's because there were no rescues to show, because, as I and others suspect, the victims were all gassed in some centralized, controlled locales. They would first be loaded into truck at the gas chamber sites, which they don't want to show us.  

This is the core of the story, the murdered Syrian civilians - we can see some were poisoned with something - probably not sarin, or very weak if so - that damages the airways and makes breathing difficult - others, as I noted at the start, were apparently finished off with slices to the skull or holes poked in the throat - Islamist methods - and this happened just days after terrorists had kidnapped over 100 fresh civilian hostages in two nearby towns they briefly conquered. To be seized like that, the applicable rules mandate they should be non-Sunni religious minorities, or from Sunni families identified as supporting the government. It's all reminiscent of every other chemical massacre I've studied. How can I avoid the same conclusion?

As part of this, it seems they had some special effects vapor, lots of the stuff, to prove on video all about Assad's sarin fog machine bombs. They got the airstrike part accepted just as automatically as usual, but they also wanted a dramatic sarin fog we could see. Lucky for us, that same effect all but proves it's a fraud, and part of a criminal deception by the foreign-backed terrorists bleeding Syria.