March 2-3, 2020
last edits March 5
As proof of the Syrian government's responsibility for years of alleged sarin attacks, a cluster of chemical impurities found in field examples is often cited. It's principally Hexamethylenetetramine - aka
Hexamine - that's noted, but there are others as well in a package I'll nickname "HexAssad." It's apt in that the chemistry is used to curse and damn the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, in a sort of voodoo sense rather than in reality. But that does strike me as corny, so I'll only use the nickname sporadically.
I've largely sidestepped this issue in the past with a basic view that:
a) I'm not clear if the found formula truly matches the government one, and
b) even if it did match entirely, it could be mimicked, stolen, or even handed over by an opposition-supporting state or agency, besides the obvious option of being Syria's own. Even if those other options rank low in comparison, they must complicate the picture more than HexAssad advocates let on.
c) considering the lack of absolute certainty, the numerous other clues for opposition use of sarin and against government use cannot just be short-circuited and must be considered. So this is what I've focused on over the years.
In the last weeks I finally engaged in a broad - if not deep - review of the many hexamine-related claims and debates from late 2013 forward, and produced a sprawling pile of text I'm not even sure how to organize. In this post, I meant to just share several high (or low) points in the blame game and address these. But in the end I wound up including most of it, and only somewhat organized.
Hexamine for sarin program?
Establishment CW expert Jean-Pascal Zanders has said: "Since (hexamine's) presence in samples was first reported by the UN investigative team last September in relation to the Ghouta attack and the OPCW later released that Syria had declared 80 metric tonnes of the chemical in connection with sarin production, there has been furious speculation as to its exact role."
(perhaps, since the declaration didn't specify its exact role in anything more specific than "CW-related", partisan thinkers were scrambling to "prove" it related to their sarin process and linked it to all these deadly attacks they need punished for.)
http://www.the-trench.org/syrias-cw-declarations/
Zanders includes hexamine under "sarin" on this list, either because it was declared that way or because he wanted it there.
https://www.the-trench.org/syrias-declared-precursor-chemicals
Declared chemicals and quantities - 80 tons of Hexamine, here not under any heading to clarify what it was used for:
https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/ADM/PSB/Tender/Request_for_EOI_OPCWCDB_EOI012013.pdf
Reseacher "Unknown" (now) achieved some well-deserved if anonymous fame as "Sasa Wawa" or "WhoGhouta," running in 2013-14 a well-organized blog Who Attacked Ghouta? Hereafter WhoGhouta produced some good coverage of the hexamine issue:
http://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2013/12/hexamine-is-not-smoking-gun.html
https://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2014/04/hexamine-again.html
http://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2014/02/more-on-hexamine.html
WhoGhouta seems correct to point out the exact use is unclear, establishing that it has been (and likely would be) used as a stabilizer for sulfur mustard, and that seemed a plausible use here where Syria produced that. Some neutralizing agent for general CW cleanup was also noted somewhere, and there might be other intended uses for hexamine all us non-experts just couldn't know of.
That's my quick take on that aspect, left sparse due to open questions - to be refined or even altered if I see adequate reason.
Lloyd-Postol-Kaszeta Debate
I didn't dig deep into the details of this, but a Bellingcat summary of the debate poses as a central issue hexamine's solubility in the precursor DF and whether it could be used as an "acid scavenger" as Kaszeta poposed (or something to that effect). This has been validly argued down IF in-flight mixing was truly central to the Lloyd-Postol argument, as it says there. That's never been part of the weapons I know of; in 2013 two weapons are alleged (grenade, volcano rocket). The volcano at least could only have a unitary fill of pre-mixed sarin, while the grenades are less clear to me. 2017's sain attacks allegations had special binary weapons alleged, apparently designed for manual mixing right before loading on the jet.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/06/21/know-hexamine-syrias-sarin/
But that point's not clear to me, and if Kaszeta's case is that "the use of hexamine as an acid scavenger had not been documented" in any of the "various nations" considered, that would make "
the apparent use of hexamine in the Syrian government’s Sarin manufacturing process unique" among states, but maybe common among terrorist groups. So IF terrorist sarin couldn't possibly be fielded in Syria, AND if the hexamine formula was Syria's previously-unknown process and not another state's unknown process, then we could be sure, like Kaszeta, that it's "like a chemical fingerprint linking Sarin attacks to the government."
Anyone interested in that debate: Lloyd and Postol debating Kaszeta's analysis, convincingly show he has no true expertise, and arguing his findings were "fraudulent."
http://goodtimesweb.org/diplomacy/2014/postol-debunks-kaszeta.pdf
This was debated, but it seems the main controversy from Kaszeta's side was whether Postol's source Maram Susli was correct, or terribly biased, and/or if she was a dangerous chemical terrorist - her take:
https://syriangirlpartisan.blogspot.com/2014/12/my-part-in-postols-investigation-of-dan.html
Ake Sellstrom and Shifting Methods of Blame
December 18, the New York Times would run the story
"Report Detail Could Further Implicate Syria in Chemical Attack, Analysts Say." This cited analysis by CRBN (preparedness) expert Dan Kaszeta,
first run 4 days earlier at Eliot Higgins' "Brown Moses" blog, arguing that "Hexamine may be the smoking gun." From here the HexAssad notion was widely picked up and expanded on.
The point was soon adopted by Ake Sellstrom, the chief of mission for the UN-OPCW investigation into the Ghouta attacks. Kaszeta was able, by July 2014, to add this sticker to his latest article on the "chemical fingerprint of Assad's war crimes":
"An appropriate question was put to UN/OPCW mission members in at a U.S. Congressional hearing. Ake Sellstrom, chief of the UN/OPCW mission to Syria and Scott Cairns, his deputy, stated the use of use of Hexamine in the process which produced the Sarin used in the Ghouta attacks is a possibility. It is clearly stated on the video of their testimony from 4:52 onward."
Winfield: Why was hexamine on the list of chemical scheduled to be destroyed it has many other battlefield uses as well as Sarin? Did you request to put it on the list or had the Syrian’s claimed that they were using it?
Sellstrom: It is in their formula, it is their acid scavenger.
Kaszeta adds "although various detractors have claimed that this quote is fabricated, the author has confirmed it generally with Dr. Sellstrom and specifically with Gwyn Winfield, who has a recording of it."
http://ciceromagazine.com/features/the-chemical-fingerprint-of-assads-war-crimes/
Oddly, we need to be assured there's a recording and also video - we don't get to see or hear them. Sellstrom's lines do sound a bit terse and to the point, as if other words were edited out, like "people are claiming" and "however..." And there don't seem to be any follow-up statements where he clarifies the point. But otherwise, Mr. Sellstrom probably did adopt this idea, then if not still, and would say there was likely proof now. OPCW's Cairns would concur, but the factual basis is not clear.
Note how both men (Sellstom and Cairns) signed off, in September 2013, on the single East Ghouta rocket bearing of 285 degrees, which (as others found) lined up with West Ghouta bearing to jointly point to a government missile base about 10km from each strike zone. But the W. Ghouta readings they gave are quite dubious, as was the alleged weapon and its alleged impact, and other details (
WhouGhouta). And the E. Ghouta bearing is clearly dead wrong (
WhoGhouta instant notice,
my later analysis, my visual below).
That wrong picture helped Human Rights Watch (see at right) and others blame the government, but only until it was proven
the volcano rocket's range was at most 1/4 that required, and the cited trajectory was wrong. Sellstrom seems to have accepted both points by the time of a December 13 press conference announcing the release of the UN-OPCW mission second report. As Whoughouta relates: "While probably not too relevant anymore, Sellstrom makes a very significant statement distancing himself from the "trajectory intersection" theory, saying
"The flight paths do not seem to meet as may be indicated in the report", and adds that a range of 2km for the UMLACA (aka Volcano) is "a fair guess". (note "may be indicated" puts it softly, and this is still quite relevant 6 years later.)
https://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2013/12/review-of-un-press-conference.html
In a France 24 interview on 18 December, five days later, Sellstrom sounded unclear on attribution. The question was down to who would likely have the delivery weapons; these largely seemed improvised, but it's noted both sides can do that. It's mentioned and agreed that soldiers were attacked, some exposed to sarin, but again both sides can make DIY mortar shells (filled with sarin, and logically both sides are capable of attacking their own fighters in a false-flag scenario). The important volcano rockets blamed for the 21 August attack were another but also ambiguous story.
There's no clue of a chemical "fingerprint" yet to rule out opposition delivery. At 3:40 Sellstrom says "I would probably not have proof to name down one side or the other. The evidence isn't there yet to be sure, I would say."
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18k4fn
From the "yet" it almost seems Sellstron expected there would be new evidence to that effect, and it seems the first public airing of the HexAssad clue was just at this same time. in fact the same day, December 18, the New York Times would run Kaszeta's theory that Sellstrom would adopt next.
This all occurred between Richard Lloyd's establishing a 2.5km range discussed by HRI Nov. 30, already getting agreement from Higgins - before McClatchy News would report formalized findings by Lloyd and prof Postol, on 16 January, 2014.
https://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2013/11/30/evidence-error-human-rights-watch-chemical-weapons-attacks/
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24761710.html
That's the rocket convergence method of regime blame failing and being replaced with the HexAssad fingerprint method, which still hasn't been universally seen to fail.
In the same interview, Sellstrom is said to add this supporting criticism of Syrian government claims: "If they really want to blame the opposition they should have a good story as to how they got hold of the munitions, and they didn’t take the chance to deliver that story.” This suggests they were not making up a story but truly did not know. In this thinking, it's suspicious if they don't have a story, and of course it would be at least as suspicious if they had a story with any degree of detail - I mean, how could they know all that unless they made it up themselves?
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2014/08/20/attempts-to-blame-the-syrian-opposition-for-the-august-21st-sarin-attacks-continue-one-year-on/
JIM Report, 2017
Reuters: "Two compounds in the Ghouta sample matched those also found in Khan Sheikhoun, one formed from sarin and the stabilizer hexamine and another specific fluorophosphate that appears during sarin production, the tests showed."
"The same test results were the basis for a report by the OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism in October which said the Syrian government was responsible for the Khan Sheikhoun attack, which killed dozens."
At the outset, the chain of custody issue must be noted; OPCW personnel were unable to visit the site (reasons are debated), so to accept environmental or most biomedical samples they would have to break the standard rules, which call for direct collection by certified OPCW personnel according to a strict protocol. Here as in most cases, the samples were primarily collected and handed over by opposition-aligned parties with an interest in blaming the government, truthfully or otherwise.
However, that doesn't prove the samples are tampered with, and there was some semblance at least of a verifiable collection process. And unusually, the rest of the samples the OPCW received from Khan Sheikhoun - seeming to match up on the key details, as far as we know - were gathered by other local activists trusted by the Syrian government, and thus not likely to be working on that same script. These might have duped Damascus with some of the same spiked samples, but it also seems reasonable to consider the dual-sourcing as minimizing (if not erasing) those doubts. So we can proceed, with only a grain of salt, with the analysis of "The samples from Khan Shaykhun." I believe these all the relevant statements are in paragraphs 56 and 84-90.
First, hexamine: samples from the purported bomb crater "confirm that sarin was produced by the binary route, in which DF is combined with isopropanol (iPrOH) in the presence of hexamine" (84) and "a reaction product of sarin with hexamine that can be formed only under very high heat." (56) I'm not sure what to make of that. I hear the reaction process is highly exothermic - it
produces a lot of heat, and in a pre-loading mix binary weapon like the M-4000 (see below) it's done under a water shower to keep the bomb cool until the mixing is done. As it turns out the M-4000 is the alleged delivery weapon in Khan Sheikhoun.
Next, the JIM raises a few further matches between the DF (sarin precursor) surrendered by Damascus and the samples taken at Khan Sheikhoun. These matches ARE specifically with what Syria had and would use. But they aren't conclusive in identifying the owner, and may serve only as similarities. But these add some to the rather weak hexamine lead.
Paragraph 88 summarizes how these "marker chemicals" being present in both the KS samples and Syrian stocks "is a strong indicator that the sarin disseminated in Khan Shaykhun was produced from DF from the Syrian Arab Republic stockpile."
Paragraph 85: "The five DF samples from the Syrian Arab Republic stockpile and the environmental samples from Khan Shaykhun all contained the impurity phosphorus hexafluoride (PF6). " The rest explains how this is formed when hydrogen fluoride (HF) is used as a fluorinating agent in the production of DF.
Paragraph 86: "Two of the five samples from the Syrian Arab Republic DF stockpile contained the impurity phosphorous oxychloride (POCl3)." Some other markers (isopropyl phosphates and isopropyl phosphorofluoridates) were found in Khan Sheikhoun that, the JIM learned, would be formed (only?) if the DF had POCl3. Thus: "Their presence is a strong indicator that the sarin disseminated in Khan Shaykhun was produced from DF from the Syrian Arab Republic stockpile." They don't mention that it could also indicate a source with similar DF production.
"87. On the basis of the foregoing, the Mechanism concludes that the presence of the marker chemical PF6 is evidence that HF was used to produce the DF that was the precursor for the sarin released in Khan Shaykhun. HF is a very aggressive and dangerous gas and therefore is difficult to handle. The use of HF indicates a high degree of competence and sophistication in the production of DF and points to a chemical-plant-type production method."
This seems designed to implicate the government, a state with control of territory, factories, experts and foreign help as needed, etc. The opposition had pretty much all the same, at the time running some half the country with enormous foreign support, from both within their Islamist support networks and without. Both sides are fully capable of handling a dangerous substance without incident, or maybe with incidents. Do we know there weren't any? What was the point of this point?
The minor point in paragraph 56 came sandwiched between these claims: "According to information obtained by the Mechanism, the filler cap, with two closure plugs, is uniquely consistent with Syrian chemical aerial bombs." (the only known basis to conclude this would only emerge weeks later, but maybe they had a sneak peek at
the M-4000 binary sarin bomb. A likely plug from one wound up right in the crater, with hardly any other debris. Suspicions it was planted are well-founded). And furthermore, "Information was also received that additional metal fragments collected from the crater might correspond to parts of Syrian aerial chemical munitions." (Nothing identifiable I know of. All the distinctive parts aside from the cap wound up in Lataminah a week earlier) These dubious points add to the largely failed evidence for a Syrian air-strike, in case the chemistry wasn't sufficient in itself.
Paragraph 89: "An initial screening of the reports concerning previous incidents of the release of sarin in the Syrian Arab Republic showed that some marker chemicals appeared to be present in environmental samples. This would warrant further study."
90: "The presence of marker chemicals that are believed to be unique is a strong indication that the sarin released in Khan Shaykhun, as well as in previous incidents, was produced using DF from the Syrian Arab Republic stockpile."
They hoped to expand this finding to implicate the government more clearly in the other alleged attacks. These have been followed up on, and will likely expand further with the wok of the new UN-OPCW "Investigation and Identification Team." Of course the JIM itself is long dead, after Russia (at least) refused to extend its mandate, claiming it was using unsound methods to pursue political aims of other states - essentially, they the JIM had been weaponized.
Obvious political motives aside, assuming the chemical findings and reasoning are valid (despite the precedent for skepticism), we can specify this HexAssad package includes these compounds also to be found in the DF produced by the Syrian CW program:
* phosphorus hexafluoride (PF6)
* phosphorous oxychloride (POCl3)
Unless I missed something, that's all they added. I'll leave it to others to say how complete a match that makes, to consider what other compounds might have not have matched, etc. Either it's definitive or it's not. In the latter case, it would be proven a different type - either an unknown Syrian product, or someone else's. If it were a total match, it means someone's using the exact DF or the exact DF recipe as Syria did, so it's either them or a selected ally, or someone else using their stolen stuff, or someone quite well-informed deliberately mimicking their process to frame them. (or using the same fairly-standard DF recipe just by natural coincidence?)
Reuters, 2018
Exclusive: Tests link Syrian government stockpile to largest sarin attack - sources
Reuters, January 29, 2018 / 11:13 PM
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-chemicalweapons-exclusiv-idUSKBN1FJ0MG
in a January, 2018 Reuters article, the HexAssad chemical findings remained - to informed sources - "the strongest scientific evidence to date that the Syrian government was behind Ghouta (and the rest, by extension).
Laboratories working for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons compared samples taken by a U.N. mission in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta after the Aug. 21, 2013 attack, when hundreds of civilians died of sarin gas poisoning, to chemicals handed over by Damascus for destruction in 2014.
...
The chemical tests were carried out at the request of the U.N.-OPCW inquiry, which was searching for potential links between the stockpile and samples from (the 2017 alleged sarin attack in) Khan Sheikhoun. The analysis results raised the possibility that they would provide a link to other sarin attacks, the source said.
So looking for a link to stockpiles, they apparently didn't find one that was very clear, or it would be mentioned. But as I'll show, that was never clarified in an article that reads like a verbal shell game, where the focus shifts without explanation to matches with OTHER SARIN INCIDENTS, all of them disputed.
Following this alternate path yielded results:
The tests found “markers” in samples taken at Ghouta and at the sites of two other nerve agent attacks, in the towns of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib governorate on April 4, 2017 and Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, in March 2013, two people involved in the process said.
“We compared Khan Sheikhoun, Khan al-Assal, Ghouta,” said one source who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the findings. “There were signatures in all three of them that matched.”
The results? HexAssad could not be clearly linked to stockpiles but did keep turning up in attacks the government is blamed for, but which they kept blaming on terrorists - after all Obama's "red line" threat against Damascus was a tempting invitation for the other side.
The Reuters piece cites Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, "an independent specialist in biological and chemical weapons" assuring us there's no chance "rebels or Islamic State were responsible for the Aug. 21 Ghouta attack." But he seems to be an active MI6 agent who coordinates w/opposition on CW investigation and propaganda, so not independent. In fact he routinely lodges politicized and invented claims I've called unhinged (
two tweets).
"Amy Smithson, a U.S. nonproliferation expert" was quoted with: “A match of samples from the 2013 Ghouta attacks to tests of chemicals in the Syrian stockpile is the equivalent of DNA evidence: definitive proof.” This doesn't seem to be quite true, nor relevant, as they do not have a total match; all she could specify was the same hexamine finding which was “a particularly significant match,” being "identified as a unique hallmark of the Syrian military’s process to make sarin," the article explains. The match remains unclear, and its uniqueness unknown. But Smithson also cites a "mountain of physical evidence that points conclusively, without a shadow of doubt, to the Syrian government," which "this match adds to" but can also lean on, in case it's not so certain after all. Smithson can overstate it all she wants, but that clear evidence simply does not exist, as so many articles at this blog and even in other places has amply demonstrated.
UN CoI Infographics
6 September, 2017 graphic with notes by me (chronological event numbers, red notes, etc.) - note in the 2 green boxes they've got entry 1 - previously seeming to be a terrorist attack - tied to incident 5, Ghouta, with the same government sarin in both cases. Khan al-Asal, 13-9-2013 has "chemical agents used bore same unique hallmarks as in Al-Ghouta (21 Aug 2013)" and that was fom the "Syrian military chemical weapons stockpile," and implicitly handled by its well-trained owners and not some ill-prepared thieves. The complex irony or cynicism of this linkage is simply astounding, and beyond the scope of this post. But for now just follow that bouncing ball into a 2019 update:
12 March, 2019: "Between March 2013 and March 2019, the @UNCoISyria publicly reported 37 instances of the use of #chemicalweapons in #Syria. The vast majority of these attacks (32 of 37) were perpetrated by Syrian Government forces, including through the use of #chlorine and #sarin. #HRC40 @OPCW"
https://twitter.com/UNCoISyria/status/1105408408830820355
The other five left at "unknown perpetrators" are pivotal - sarin attacks specified elsewhere as involving the same identifiers. Khan Sheikhoun and Al-Latamneh (29, 28) are clearly on the government apparently because, as mentioned, it was decided to be "air strikes" with air bombs that spread the sarin, where that's not the case or is less clear in these other five cases:
Khan al-Asal, 19-3-13
Uteibah, same day
Sheikh Maqsoud, 13-4-13
Saraqib, 29-4-13 (should be under Idlib, not Aleppo)
Ghouta, 21-8-13
From this, it seems the chemistry wasn't enough to pin the blame; it's not a DNA match or a fingerprint after all, and some of the most important cases of all are left at "unknown perpetrators." But that appearance isn't allowed to hold up long; the same exact sarin said to be used in the 2017 bombings is also said to be used for incidents 1, 4, and 5 on this list; by extension the government did those too. And the same perpetrator is suggested in the other cases: incident #2 seems coordinated with #1 (as was a barely-noted claimed attack in Homs the same day -
see here). #3 used the same hand grenade blamed for #4, and both of these were allegedly air strikes as well (the grenades were stuffed into cinderblocks, maybe put in a cardboard box, maybe with bags involved, and other cited sarin-TNT barrel bombs - the accepted version is 2 grenades in a box, dropped from a helicopter so the pins pull on impact. As "proof," video of one was shown, seeming to both glow white and emit white smoke as it fell - or that was some white phosphorous being dropped and someone got confused. But we can see here why it's important that it falls from an aircraft, which "rebels" don't have. There's an Assad regime "fingerprint" in there, so it better not come right from a Jabhat al-Nusra fighter's chest, even though that's the only place they had been seen otherwise.
Also note in both infographics a huge gap of nearly two years from April 2014 to April 2016 not covered (top graphic, see event 9 vs. 10 - bottom, see 13 vs. 14. Several deadly and emotive attacks were alleged in this span and previously considered. But here and everywhere else, it seems official acknowledgment of all those had ended by September, 2017 and remain off the radar, for reasons that remain unclear.
Summary
Eliot Higgins/Bellingcat, June 2018: "it was a French National Evaluation about the Khan Sheikhoun chemical in April 2017 that provided the first significant piece of information on the use of hexamine, nearly 4 years after the August 21st 2013 Sarin attacks.
“According to the intelligence obtained by the French services, the process of synthesizing sarin, developed by the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC) and employed by the Syrian armed forces and security services, involves the use of hexamine as a stabilizer. DIMP is also known as a by-product generated by this process.”"
To me that reads like a more elaborate way of saying "we think it's their method." They cite who it would be done by as if it were a known fact rather than their politicized claim.
Higgins (same link): "
The presence of hexamine at every confirmed Sarin attack shows the hexamine is part of the Syrian government’s manufacturing process."
As I've said all along,
they can only tie the attacks to each other, not to the government, even with this touted chemical fingerprint.
see
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-sarin-evidence.html
