Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Pre-Douma CW Incidents in E. Ghouta, 2018

March 27-29, 2019
rough, incomplete, and in progress

Let's take a belated and somewhat cursory look at the alleged chemical attacks in the Eastern Ghouta area in early 2018 up to April, all building up to the famous Douma chemical massacre of 7 April (my prior posts in this partially collected here). Along the way, I'm also going to have us look at what seems to at least a bit of chemical extermination of captives that was, as often as not, blamed on non-chemical attacks by Assad forces and. So we're looking, perhaps, at both reported and obscured chemical incidents.

To start, I'm citing a stupid, misleading but impressively huge (useful) list of 336 chemical attacks published recently by the Germany-based Global Public Policy Institute. https://www.gppi.net/2019/02/17/the-logic-of-chemical-weapons-use-in-syria
The listing is useful, not the analysis. (2% by ISIS, 98% by "Assad regime") ,lists 18 chemical attacks in "Reef Damascus" (here meaning Eastern Ghouta) alone in 2018, up to, including, and ending with the one in Douma on 7 April.

The Douma-based Violations Documentation Center (VDC) will also be cited, along with sporadic things for now, perhaps more in time. The VDC's martyrs/killed database lists just 2 fatalities blamed on CW in all Syria in this span (January through April 6), both boys, linked to the Feb. 25 incident (see below). They'll also list some other victims considered here, but as reported - blamed on other things, for some reason.

These reports came in during the Syrian government's offensives to reclaim all of E. Ghouta from opposition forces, who were largely headed by or allied with Jaish Al-Islam … Here, I won't bother much with the details of that fighting and when each area surrendered. The GPPI report includes a handy graphic of how they heard it - attacks on the map compared to a basic gist of the offensives (see page 30). I should whip up my own map, and might do that...

From Douma on 7 April, at least, it seems the gas reports come just before defeat and stop afterwards. This is taken as evidence for the running opposition claim, as with Douma, that this is Assad's way of forcing them to surrender; he knows they have good hearts, as good Muslims who can't stand to see "their own" (or anyone's?) babies dying from toxic gas. So to save lives, they'll finally surrender, as they did in Douma the day after 43 civilians were killed by gas, after weeks where that many died almost daily (allegedly) from non-CW attacks.

Uh, yeah... They did not surrender in 2013 after they apparently gassed several hundred of their own hostages, including dozens of babies. No, at that point, the opposition claimed it was about 1,700 innocents killed by Assad's sarin rockets, and they clamored for U.S. airstrikes to back them in a takeover of the capitol (that would have been led by the Saudi-backed Jaish Al-Islam, by the way).

In 2018, they had no such hopes, were physically at or near defeat, and coincidentally they got better morals all of a sudden? Even as they lost everything, they would free all their civilian hostages rather than using them in a similar way at the last chance? With no motive to win a war, perhaps not … but I suspect they would have enough motive just to kill some heretics and get Syria in trouble (sanctioned more, maybe bombed a bit, demonized more clearly for a bit longer etc.)

Jan-Feb attacks in brief
The first seven CW incidents of the year, per the GPPI report's list, are in
- Douma Jan. 13 (well-confirmed at 3),
- Jan. 22, Jan. 22 (2 in a day, less clear and ranked 1 and 2).
- Then nearby Jisrein Jan 23 + 25 (both murkier level 1 cases),
- then Douma Feb. 1 and
- Hamoryah on Feb. 4,

… and then a pause before the deadly one on Feb. 25. For now I have nothing to add on any of these.

February 25, Al-Shifouniya
25/02/2018 Shafuniyeh Damascus Chlorine Assad regime, confirmation level: 3 of 3 (“comprehensively confirmed.”)

Some child victims suffering exposure were shown in a news video, with white eyes - maybe a hair pink overall, but not red, open with no sign of distress. Their lungs can hardly be much worse off. The masks are for show, as usual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhadA4baJaE
February 26, Al-Jazeera video
Video description: "Medics in Syria say a child has died and a dozen more are being treated after another suspected chlorine gas attack. Witnesses reported smelling the gas after an explosion in the rebel-held area of Eastern Ghouta." Video shows a man holding a small child wrapped in blue (blurred) saying, as translated, "they bombard us with chlorine, sarin, and other gasses from Iran. We don't know what they are..." But he knows who to blame, and of course includes Russia.

One boy died that day from this, allegedly, and there are picture showing it's the same boy held above. His name was Adnan Smadi ( عدنان صمادي ), as given by the Douma-based VDC (for the Arabic for any VDC entry, replace /en with /ar in the url and reload). Age 4 it says, specifically killed by chlorine, a linked video, already unavailable. He seems to be gasping, as dead people might do with or without poison.
Not much back story is given. He has white eyes, suggesting no chlorine touched them while his heart was still beating. So how could he die from it? (the answer: under unusual circumstances or not at all). It does seem something caused pulmonary edema, or this is suggested by the one plugged nostril. Unless that's putty, it might be foam. No signs of it at his mouth, but … if it's foam, it's kind of pink, which suggests he was bleeding (lightly) in the airways. Yellow staining? Faint traces perhaps … unclear. But it's something we watch for.

The VDC also lists just one other boy, a small baby, dying from CW, but 4 days later, on March 1. Ahmad al-Ahmad was also killed by chlorine, they heard. It's noted "Nine months old , He died today Affected by the attack on 25 February" Both are said the be locals from Shifunia.fresh blood from nose, swollen hand, previous deforming wound to the lower lip? poss. mild cyanosis (not calling it or ruling it out), eyes closed, unclear (no sign of damage), and most obviously a lot of blood from the nose at least, maybe the mouth too.. Yellowish forehead and upper head?


As for the 4-day delay, it often takes hours or even days to finally die from chlorine exposure. Four days is quite long for someone leaking that much blood at the end - after 4 days to stabilize and heal - and with very little of the usual foam that suffocates people, as fluids and air mix awkwardly … if this was a caustics exposure, it was short and sharp, skipped the eyes, and killed in minutes with near-total lung destruction. I'm no expert but I've studied and considered these things for years now. I think this little boy didn't even struggle to breathe for very long, hence little foam and none visible. That's minutes, not 4 days. In such a case, he could as well be shot in the lungs by a gun, and might have been instead. Or, if the blood comes only from his nose, the wound could be to the back of his head.

March, Mostly in Hamouriya
From there, most attacks are in Hamouriya - ATM not sure which one this belongs to, but it's said to be from a chlorine attack there in March (at least 3 will be examined here). It won't have killed anyone, but that is real chlorine, liquid and gas in the right colors (it turns brown, esp. the liquid), and a great view of the frost from autorefrigeration, caused by the compressed liquid boiling away rapidly inside.
FWIW multiple views of it from the video:
I think this thing was tossed/fired and landed - it didn't likely fall from a helicopter far above - the valve snapped off on impact, allowing pressure-liquified chlorine gas to leak out and then boil out. The full half is full of very cold liquid chlorine (somewhere above -34 Celsius to be boiling). The difference from back to front end is due to it being on a slope. The liquid is level. Its drainage would be slower than, for example, the one at Location 2 in the 7 April Douma incident. In Douma, this case, and any others, the yellow tank, with out without the aerial harness, appears as special effects, to provide the key proof Assad must've done this, since only he has helicopters, etc.

5 March, Hamouriya: False-Flag Averted?
The GPPI report lists two CW attacks this day:
05/03/2018 Irbin Reef Damascus, Unknown, Assad regime, conf. level 1
05/03/2018 Hamoryah Reef Damascus Chlorine Assad regime, conf. level 2

I'm not sure how interesting it is that the one attack involved an "unknown" toxin, rather than certain chlorine. A few attacks are listed this way, either because different poisons were used or alleged, or because they just didn't have enough information. Recall the activist above who thought maybe it was sarin the Iranians were sending for Assad to use, besides chlorine. I don't have any information yet on the Irbin incident. Here, for now, we'll focus just on the Hamouriya one.

A girl with no sign of eye damage or chlorine exposure is the most famous image of this day's reported chlorine attack. Actually, the other photo where her eyes are closed was more widely circulated than this one...
This case (Hamouriya) is of special interest with a dedicated post I put on hold. It takes considering some prior reports of interest, lodged by investigative reporter Vanessa Beeley. She heard from Hamouriya locals shortly after liberation how they think they foiled a sizeable CW false flag massacre there, one set to claim around 30 lives and be pinned late on 5 March, to the liberation of the town on the following day or so. In fact they said about 30 were already killed and their bodies gathered, but never reported AS victims of that night's chlorine attack.
https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/07/02/false-flag-fail-how-syrian-civilians-derailed-white-helmets-chemical-stunt-in-eastern-ghouta/

Indeed, no such deadly event was reported, so maybe plans were called off. Unusually, the very fact of a chlorine attack was refuted in this case by opposition leaders declaring sorry, no chlorine attack by Assad forces after all. It could be they were just confused, and it was chlorine, but... what caused the confusion and shifts in this case? It suggests something unusual - like a failed plan that they noticed failing - is at work.

But I also didn't see much clear sign of a plan in the works the claim multiple deaths, when the possible plot-foiling happened around half a day after the chlorine attack to be blamed had been reported. I didn't find any report mentioning any deaths from the gas, then or later, just several saying that some 30 people were "choking" from that, and also 23 were reported dead. I checked, and there's no overlap - these are two distinct groups. In fact, they're so distinct it's interesting...

That's actually a pretty good summary now, except for all the details and explanation (there's not many, it's simple), so it may take a while to get motivated to finish the dedicated post...

It is worth adding these links to explain the 23 dead, per VDC queries (hoping the links work right? they look exactly the same ...):
- From Hamouriya, died 5 March presumably there (the woman, 17 men)
- From elsewhere, but died in Hamouriya, same day (5 men)
...and then some quick notes:
- The 5 men from other are 2 relatives from Deir al-Asafir, and 3 others from Jobar (family names Karban, Sweid, Abed)
- 3 men are named al-Masri (the 2 from Deir al-Asafir, and one native to Hamouriya.)
- 3 men are named Issa (all Hamouriya, as the rest):
- 2 Badra men, 2 Aghawani men, 2 Bakir men, 
- one man each of Erbeni, Hamdouh, al-Tereh, Ekhshou.  
- one named just "Talal", 2 just "unidentified."
- the woman, Hanen Ali Sarsak (by listing order, poss. a wife to Samer Badrah)

7 March, Hamouriya
07/03/2018 Hamoryah Reef Damascus Chlorine Assad regime, conf. level 2

https://twitter.com/HadiAlabdallah/status/971690390779777025
This refers people to a video about "people suffering from chlorine gas poison in the town of Hammouriya" Some of the cast below - from left to right: A fighting age male is seen coughing severely and realistically between mask treatments. His eyes maybe too white - maybe a bit pink - never seen well. He does prefer to keep them closed; that might be real and full exposure, FWIW. Among some small boys calmly getting injections, this one (center) has white eyes, no sign of distress, breathing or otherwise. A baby girl with no sign of medical crisis and pearly white eyes (right) is held by someone who doesn't seem like family, for some reason.

And from the same video, a woman who survived, also with no eye redness, speaks through a nebulizer / oxygen mask - gives some explanation of the chlorine attack (not translated)

That's a strange linear scratch across the forehead on this attractive young woman involved in CW attacks in this area in these days, considering … this woman who was among those just found dead in some apartments in Douma on 7 April, with a similar look (better dressed and cared for than many), and with similar scratch, plus a little bruise or, perhaps considering other victims, a little burn mark. The color looks more like a bruise. Hm... according to the scene, she tipped backwards in her chair, I think...

These appear to be two different women with slightly different wounds, but this may be no coincidence. It might point to a shared circumstance (involving captivity of some kind) that's a clue as to why these two women wound up in alleged gas attacks or in real gas chambers during those final days of the Islamist occupation of E. Ghouta…

Fatalities? I didn't notice any reports saying anyone died from the gas in this attack. But that question goes best under its own heading, which is...

A Whole Family Died?
It's said a sad young girl shown on video just lost her whole family to a chlorine attack in this area, by the claim of 8 March. Her eyes are wide and clearly 100% white, but maybe she was off somewhere else when the rest of them died, was brought to the hospital to see them (she seems to be in some kind of hospital, suggesting it all just happened - but that could be a false lead)
https://twitter.com/HAMZH7711/status/971712757639864321
"A girl lost her family after the chlorine strikes that targeted the town of Hamouriya" 
That's from Hamza AL-Yousf @HAMZH7711, ‏4:42 AM - 8 Mar 2018 
Yousef is, per translated profile, "Media activist in the Syrian revolution, a journalist in the civil defense, certified trainer"

It's not clear what incident that might refer to. Just two boys agreed to as dead, perhaps zero others in contention (that is, not even a report of deaths that I saw) Here I'll look back at 7 March Hamouriya fatalities, since... 

- if it was the 5th, ostensibly only the men of several families died in Hamouriya, and not from chlorine. The 28 civilians (13 women and 15 children) reported in bad shape from the chlorine, all allegedly survived and were "evacuated" from the area coming under government control (that is, thet left with the fighting groups and their families, supporters, prisoners, etc. The White Helmets ("Syrian civil defense") rescued them, with 2 getting sick (for the reports of 30 people choking), and vouched for their safe evacuation away from Hamouriya.
- anything before the 5th is pretty old news
- the VDC has no deaths of locals listed for the 6th or the 8th

VDC lists 27 people from Hamouriya dying the 7th, all from regular old "warplane shelling." 
Every one is listed as unidentified, with no details. All 27 say adult male for gender, but in this case, that could mean blank; AM seems to be the default setting that appears if nothing is entered there. I've seen thousands of the VDC entries, and never once is the gender field blank or says anything like "unknown." Where it seems like it should, it says Adult-Male.

If so, why was it all blank? That's unusual. Sometimes a body is blown up so badly they can't tell, or charred to a skeleton. They could only get a death toll and no details, perhaps, where communication is cut off. That's not it here, better and clearer reports follow.

Maybe they leave that info out sometimes because it's embarrassing? I'm sure that's the case with some names. As for the gender and age of these 27 deaths ... That could be a couple of families and some single men, or maybe just men, or all of the 28 women and children rescued earlier, with one spared, or just left off the tally to explain this girl - perhaps a real survivor, spared from the gas chamber, on account of being mute, perhaps? Why have a witness to something you're going to write off as boring "warplane shelling" anyway? Maybe two different plans, not well coordinated … 

So it seems possible this girl did lose her family, over the span of three days: father, maybe an uncle or older brother, killed by "shelling" on the 5th, as her mother and any female and preteen male siblings allegedly were gas attacked but rescued by the White Helmets that day (along with her?), "evacuated," only to be killed on the 7th somewhere outside Hamouriya, by "shelling" or "chlorine attack" (depending who you ask - Hamza al-Yousef, a W.H. source, heard it was chlorine). 

Other possibilities exist, including total coincidence. But the ones involving the 28-27 people matching up are most compelling to me. (e.g. the girl is just an actor good at looking sad, or the victims did die in Hamouriya on the 5th and just had the reports delayed, besides sanitized of all connecting details).

14 March, Hamouriya
14/03/2018 Hamoryah Reef Damascus Chlorine Assad regime, confirmation level 1 (“credibly substantiated” - but not certain or very clear)
It seems to be in Hamouriya that a stupid green smoke scene was filed, and posted 14 March by waحed shami وحيد الشامي @ahlelsham (a quick scan suggests he's so hardcore he's pestered even many opposition supporters into blocking him)
https://twitter.com/ahlelsham/status/974051568319369216 - two screen grabs help show the green. The scene is explained pretty thoroughly by ahlelsham: "#SOS #Hamouriya #EasternGhouta #Damascus #Syria #Chlorine #Rape #Executions #SaveChildren #SaveCivilians #SaveElderly #SaveHumanLives #WarCrimes #Hitlers #BasharAlAssad #VladimirPutin #Genocide #Holocaust #UnitedNations #USA #UK #EU" Strangely, Iran isn't mentioned...

The cameraman's gesture towards the smoke (or people that way?) made me wonder, but an Arabic speaker tells me no one in the video claims this is chlorine, which would be wise - no one seems to cough or need much of a mask, or try to flee in a rush - some climb over rubble, suggesting a recent attack causing some of the non-green dust in the air... - the rest, maybe looking faker a bit ago, is some green colored smoke, the wrong shade for chlorine (which is an almost yellow shade, to this almost fluorescent green closer to aquamarine), and also too light and high-drifiting to be chlorine. It's possible this is a weird effect of conventional bombs going off wrong, etc. that coincidentally happened on the same day a chlorine attack was reported. But you can guess what I think; this was supposed to look like chlorine, but they called off calling it that for some reason...

https://twitter.com/LoveUrWorld_/status/974052853118627840
SOS #Hamouriya URGENT TIME IS RUNNING OUT #Ghouta #EasternGhouta #Syria Many cases of suffocation of women and children were caused by an attack of chlorine gas by the chlorine gangs on the peaceful neighbourhoods of the city. #GhoutaGenocide #SaveGhouta
Included photo shows 2 dead children (both look like boys to me) - one looks ill or possibly gassed - it involves puffy eyes. This can happen from various causes, including but not limited to the eyes being badly damaged by corrosive chemicals. Such eyes would not be white like those shown above, but ... I'm not quite not sure. Somewhere between bloodshot and totally dissolved. Of course it's the younger one this may have been done to; the older kid appears fairly normal, no sign of blood from the airways, so if that's his blood on the sheet, it's probably from a wound in the neck-head area - likely fatal.
Damascus Media Center stamped photo - the backstory origin is unclear, maybe the same people?

The VDC at least got no reports of chemical fatalities to cover these or any others. These were probably reported, but as killed by something else.
It seems these are among 14 civilians killed that day, probably all in one alleged strike on some basement they were sheltering in. 13 come up as from Hamouriya: 7 men, 2 women, 3 boys, 1 girl. Six victims are named Erbeeni (a man, 1 boy, the girl, both women - no room for any maiden-name wives - is one of these the man's wife?). Besides that family, there are 6 unaccompanied men - 2 are named Naddaf, the rest Hamdan, Rihani, Issa, Tomeh. The other children are two sons of a Mostafa Yasin, named Mohammad and Obada. No ages or notes are given, and no images, but logically, these are probably the two boys shown above. Victim 14 is on another list for martyrdom location: Hamouria (from elsewhere): Samir Nader Rihan (if this is the same name, it's spelled different (typo?) in the Arabic rendering as well) He was from Madyara. Unlike the others, the VDC have a photo of him (alive, no clues), and notes: he was called Abo Nader


17/18 March, Douma / Ein Tarma (?)
The GPPI lists just one attack here, where it seems there may be two: 18/03/2018 Douma Reef Damascus Chlorine Assad regime, conf. level 1
I haven't found much info on this yet, unless it connects to a set of people it shouldn't - there's some confusion here. Maybe the GPPI should have rated it zero and dropped it. A video posted the 17th claims to show some children killed by bombing in Ain Tarma. But they look very much like toxic gas victims. But the GPPI lodged no report for a March 17 attack … ah, did they rate this a zero? See, they make that into a blank spot, whereas I take the smoking gun clues the zeros usually include, and make a big deal of it...

https://twitter.com/ahlelsham/status/975180567456178176
https://twitter.com/ahlelsham/status/975180729469558784
Killed by #Hitlers #BasharAlAssad and #VladimirPutin in #Eastern_Ghouta #Damascus #Syria #ChildrenUnderAttack #Childhood #UN #USA #UK #EU
Jobar News photos - added text to be translated

older children, two preteen (?) girls, apparently (or a girl and a boy with pink clothing spots) dirty-smoky clothing, moderate degree, fairly mild signs but there - faintly purple lips, dry yellow mucous in mouth? undamaged eyes in one case. Actually, quite a few clues on closer inspection.

The baby (boy? only blue seen) had it bad and differently: purple lips and upper face (eyes, forehead - as if upside-down so this is the livor mortis pattern, shifted purple by low oxygen), horribly swollen eyes, burning eyelids, yellow mucous tinged with blood, dry sticky yellow residue all over his forehead...
Odd, considering CW victims in Douma, 7 April, looked about the same except ... someone decided to do it with goggles this time? Yellow, caustic, staining material from the mouth and nose, winds up all over the face, especially right under the eyes, but not right in the eyes.


Viola, the eyes were undamaged, almost looking fake, despite a real gassing death. What confused moron would do this, unless maybe he'd seen how that baby turned out in the trial run two weeks earlier, already adjust for the others. Or, likely, they were already goggling most victims in what had become regular work for these terrorists, and that baby led them to scrape up some baby-sized goggles. Douma, 7 April: this baby girl has clear eyes inside a baby-goggles shape, surrounded by rash-like irritation (difference in views likely from both time passed and lighting, but no yellow staining. They washed her up quicker than most - except that one earlobe, at least … 

Then she, and not that melted toddler above, got shown off as a victim of Assad's chlorine genocide, save the babies, etc.  

18 March. I'll be including this case in Douma's Mask of Death part 2 fairly soon, I hope. 

VDC results unclear ATM - 2 groups might include the 3 children in the Jobar News photos - one set is from Jobar (going with Jobar News), but displaced to and killed in Ein Tarma (where people get gassed upside down to look like that baby), on 3-17, which is another match and yet another. Another batch includes kids from Douma, said to be killed there the 18th - a potential but less compelling match in both regards. All are reported as killed by regular shelling by regime forces. But someone said there was a chemical attack, and it seemed to be in Douma.

These three kids at least were gassed, and it was reported wrong or not at all. The GPPI list didn't see fit to include a matching event. As their report explained, "As of 23 January 2019, we assessed 336 incidents as either “credibly substantiated,” “confirmed,” or “comprehensively confirmed.” We dismissed 162 reports." It's not clear if this is one of them, or a case that was just never even reported to them AS a CW incident. It doesn't seem the VDC or anyone else considers it as such.

18 March Victims: going over the VDC records, there were 16 killed here, some families, one being of an FSA fighter. One still on Jaish Al-Islam's good side, right? His family went down with him.
16 civilians from Jobar are listed as dying on this day. All, I think, specify the following:
Area \ Place of birth: Jobar
Date of death: 2018-03-17
Martyrdom location: Damascus Suburbs: Ein Tarma (displaced? explanation?)
Cause of Death: Warplane shelling
Actors: Syrian government and affiliated militias
Notes: generally none, except for the FSA guy. All but him are listed as civilian.

Everything different follows: the names, gender, ages given for 2 women, 3 men, and 11 children, mostly from 3 families (in parantheses means my notes).

Baraea Hassan Tarabilsi Adult - Female age 30 (if this is the mother of the next two, they could be a Christian or non-Muslim family)
Mariam al-Tarabilsi Child - Female age 8
Sara al-Tarabilsi Child - Female age 14
Raefat Arnaeout Child - Male age blank (less than 1? is he the melted infant?)
Rafif al-Bokaei Child - Female age 2
Mohammad Nabil Sawwan Child - Male age 7
Mohammad Zaher Sawwan Child - Male age 11
Alae Sawwan Child - Female age 10
Othman Sawwan Child - Male age 5
Rashed Salem al-Soda Child - Male age 6
Ali Salem al-Souda Child - Male age 4
Salem Soliman al-Souda Adult - Male age 35 Non-Civilian, Rank FSA "called as Abo Rashed"
http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/details/martyrs/198977#.XJzK_PZFzmQ
Shahed al-Souda Adult - Female age blank (as with the rest)
Tabarak Mohammad Khanfour "Dobia" Adult - Male
Khalil Ahmad Shahouta Adult - Male
Raefat al-Tarablsi Child - Male

This is interesting, and may be yet another parallel with the Douma attack. The hardest-hit family there was named Bakriyeh -
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/05/bakriyeh-family-deaths.html
It's a fairly rare name on the VDC's killed list, but on a prominent "FSA" commander Mohamed Diab Bakriyeh killed in fighting, they say, in 2014 (oddly, on the same day as a relative - perhaps brother by name, from regime shelling). He commanded a Douma Martyr's Brigade that was soon running afoul of the dominant Jaish Al-Islam, soon helps spawn a rebellion against them that was crushed, and then the remainder of Bakriyeh's DMB signed up to help the Syrian government unstead of fighting it. 11 people with his family name, plus some wives married in (unclear) were among those gassed with caustics on 7 April as JaI closed up its old business and moved to Idlib…

Remaining to Cover
Not that I will cover them all, but perhaps ... the other early 2018 Ghouta incidents on the GPPI big list not yet mentioned in this blog post - actually just four that they included, and none of them rated 3 for confirmation.
conf. level 1 10/03/2018 Irbin Reef Damascus Unknown Assad regime
conf. level 2 11/03/2018 Irbin Reef Damascus Chlorine Assad regime
conf. level 1 12/03/2018 Eastern Ghouta Reef Damascus Unknown Assad regime
conf. level 1 21/03/2018 Zamalka Reef Damascus Unknown Assad regime

Then there are the few I mentioned, but didn't look at. Now all are included here, in case I want to find another one to tackle. Other possibilities, like the important 17 March incident, don't even get listed as CW events, and have to pop out by their own details. So there could be even more, that I might possibly find, and also cover...

3 comments:

  1. Any cases of starting fires to 'detoxify'?

    Or mention of Riam Dalati's "Dr Abu Bakr Hanan"? ("Not sure what [Dalati's] story is, but he’s wrong". Incredible.)

    Do you know what Brian W means by the Douma fins being "a type that could not be used for ground-launched projectiles"?

    To a layman like me, those fins and these 'barrel bomb' fins don't seem that different to other ground-launched improvised rocket fins like this and these. Doesn't appear to be an OPCW report statement.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Little if any sign of detox fires ever. Not that I recall seeing.

    Dr. Hanan - didn't stumble across him yet. Might be worth looking for. Poss. to-do.

    Fins: not sure, but they'd have to fit inside the launching tube, or possibly outside with a harness involved. The biggest ones we know of do look too small to fit the whole thing. Just the cylinder, more likely.

    There's a video I'll try and add to surface-launched cylinders post, showing what seems to be one of them flying in an arc, 4 fins instead of 3, passing near a Nusra/HTS drone, then landing with a huge explosion. Whatever the fins, they fired that one. And the one highlighted there was app. launched from the surface as well, however they did it. Hell, if you just want it to fall through a roof, a catapult could probably do the trick.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fires anywhere in Syria? Must be some reason Dalati thought it wasn't uncommon (or at least knew what they would give as a reason for the fire).

      Brian W's article mentioning fins linked to the 2015 OPCW report that only speculates a different device would be too heavy to launch from the ground. As you say, fins don't need to 'work' to be a prop.

      Wonder how the width of the ramps above and cylinder wheels compare, difficult when having to rely on the anti-gov groups documenting their own improvised weapons to show what is possible.

      Delete

Comments welcome. Stay civil and on or near-topic. If you're at all stumped about how to comment, please see this post.