Idlib CW Massacre 4-4-17: Masterlist

Idlib CW Massacre 4-4-17: Masterlist  

April 12, 2017
last updates Oct. 2, 2017

Among the many, many alleged chemical attacks in Syria that's been blamed on its government, the one reported early on April 4, 2017, with at least 78 and likely over 100 killed, is the probably the second deadliest to date (at around 500+, the Ghouta massacre of 2013 still has a distant lead, and a little-known alleged sarin attack by Russian forces last December is a close #3, or perhaps still #2, at a reported 93 dead.) It's claimed these 100+ locals, all civilians, were exposed to sarin nerve gas fired on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, southern Idlib province. That was early in the morning, around 6:45-7 am, and was said to affect over 500, mostly as they slept. 

In reality, much evidence suggests, local anti-government Islamist groups massacred some of the hostages they've seized, perhaps including the 120 or more reportedly abducted from the villages of Khattab and Majdal just days before this incident, during the time that al-Qaeda-affiliated militants had overrun the otherwise government-held towns in northern Hama province.  

Either way, it was the first alleged CW attack of the 6-year so far to spark direct U.S. military strikes against the sovereign nation of Syria, damaging an airfield and destroying several jets used in their anti-terrorism fight, and killing a reported 9 civilians and wounding others with some of the 59 missiles that went astray. The (hot-headed?) Trump administration has offered some reasons to support their decision to credit rebel claims, but these don't seem adequate to answer the growing questions about that story. It remains disturbingly possible the U.S. government has, more directly than ever before, rewarded the terrorists occupying much of Syria for one of their sectarian massacres of  civilian hostages.

This post only offers a basic overview for now, and organizes links to a few sub-posts where some of the details are explained (for others, see affiliated ACLOS talk page, besides a lot of decent to great work by others not in my network - a few linked sporadically as they come up)

* Special attention to the analysis of Dilbert's devious God, Scott Adams, via and alongside a furious b at Moon of Alabama. plus comments.

Sup-Posts:

* The When and Where - Added May 6, a big piece with video analysis findings, geolocation, solar angle timeline placement, etc. The white cloud and white fog considered, impact points, located homes said to be affected, and the most accurate wind estimate yet, which is strangely opposite of the direction built into the rebel story (as shown here, and explained there).

* Idlib CW False-Flag Covers for Islamist Massacre - the widely read starter post from the 4th, featuring the children killed by some unexplained bladed type of sarin that seems to follow Islamist protocol for how to kill kids vs. adults (head slices for kids, throats for men aged 13 and up). It's a small sampling, but more than we should expect - this is quite a slip! So far, this remains a leading point.

Note: this is the exception to the general rule that most dead seem to be/probably were gassed (how many real vs. fake victims have been seen vs. unseen is still a bit unclear)

** Important sub-post: Two Smoking Gun Head Wounds

* The Sarin Evidence - if this is the sarin people are describing, it sounds like the smelly, impure kind Islamist forces in Syria are known to have used in the past. So far, it seems western tests are confirming that, and they rely on false blame precedents to craft another unwarranted blaming.

* The Shayrat Airfield Link: considering what did happen vs. might have, vis-a-vis the alleged 6:46 Syrian overflight - includes a good visual overview of what happened, maybe to be copied here, below. But the main point is questioning the involvement of those jets, which was the public basis for attacking the Shayrat airbase they're said to take off from.

* Abdelhamid al-Yousef: The Proof Man? Following and predicting the moves of the leading alleged witness-survivor. with sub-posts on his alleged family, speedy recovery, etc.

* Monitor Mahmoud Unravels the Quds1 Sarin-Chlorine Serial Murder Plot “Quds 1, guys he has chemicals, he has chemicals. He is the same pilot who had dropped chemicals on Latamineh” ... "four bombs carrying the chemical substances sarin and chlorine."

* Saving the Khaled Family: see a family of 6 soaked in the mud for at least 40 minutes at one "hospital," get trucked off at 8 am to be shown as dead in various combinations, then get rushed to a remote hospital to save their lives, at about noon. See the friendly rebels fail to save these people, even with their fancy white W77 trucks, the White Helmets, and all that outside help.

* The Fakers - Two clear cases singled out - one plays dead but can't help but peek at the camera, and the other plays a convulsing sarin victim, who keeps going as long as the cameras stay around.  A number of others also seem possibly fake.

Note: it's not fake like nothing happened. There's a real and terrible thing under this fake thing, it seems primarily chemical, and at least partly Islamist (and I think it's mostly chemical and all-Islamist), and all of it deserves careful and honest study.

Critical Reviews of Others' Investigations
* The OPCW's No Wind Theory (July) No discernible wind? So the sarin rolls downhill to the southwest? Huh. Too bad there was a real and discernible wind in the opposite direction. And too bad it would roll to the northwest in their scenario, if they had mapped it right. Oops. (this last was noticed after the article)

* The Evidence vs. Bellingcat vs. Khan Sheikhoun False Flag Theories and four best questions between open-source citizen investigators (added August 6)
* On the UN CoI's Meaningless Report (September)
* CoI Report Dismantling at the Indicter (links and adds a bit to external article based on the above but much improved)
* Gareth Porter reviewed:
** Part 1: on Faking Sarin Tests (added October 2)
* Refuting Ted Postol (included in The Blasts). And while we're at it ... his backwards wind reading is one thing, and handled fairly well. But what the hell was this?

* Timeline issues (forthcoming): Important point regarding the problems with the Russian narrative, so far, and some other points of interest to disassembling the Western-opposition spin as well. (see for now ACLOS section on hospital attack time)

<add Aug. 7>And since it keeps coming up, including "verification" by Seymour Hersh's insider source, I'll just add this here: the best evidence suggests there was no Syrian or Russian airstrike at the time of the incident. This means there was no accidental release of chemicals from hitting a terrorist CW facility on accident. Russian, Syrian, and supportive sources have repeatedly suggested this is the explanation for the events and deaths recorded around 7 am. But those people don't seem to realize the fundamental disconnect.  By way of details, they explain:
* Syrian FM Walid Al-Moallem "said the government's first strike happened at 11:30 a.m," which is noted as "about five hours after reports of the chemical attack emerged." (CNN)
* Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov: “Yesterday, from 11:30 am to 12:30 p.m. local time, Syrian aviation made a strike on a large terrorist ammunition depot and a concentration of military hardware in the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun town ...there were workshops which produced chemical warfare munitions ... The poisoning symptoms of the victims in Khan Sheikhoun shown on videos in social networks are the same as they were in autumn of the previous year in Aleppo.” (Reuters) (Russians know a lot about rebel CW arsenals in Aleppo; it's a talking point.)
Konoshenkov at least suggests the poison was released in that strike at noon. But all imagery and reports are clear the bad thing with suffocating kids happened right around 7 am or a bit earlier. So however whoever decided this might be the explanation, they were wrong. Either Syria and Russia are lying about the time of this first strike of the day, or the incident was not caused, even indirectly, by a jet. There are two jets on radar, but they seem to be on a dawn reconnaissance mission, presumably to scope the scene in advance of the coming attack. Damascus denies any strikes this early, but did not deny that they had any flights in the area around 6:46 am.<end Aug. 7>

* Others perhaps forthcoming

Idlib CW Massacre 4-4-17: The Fakers

Idlib CW Massacre 4-4-17: The Fakers
Adam Larson (Caustic Logic)
April 12, 2017
(probably incomplete, to be updated)

in the wake of widespread questioning of the April 4 alleged sarin attack, I've seen a sentiment aired in response that the critics are heartless conspiracy theorists, exploiting the suffering of the innocent to exculpate a dictator, blaming the victims for their own deaths, or accusing the victims of faking it, like hired actors.

In some cases, that may be - some of the critics might be, or act like, assholes who flippantly question every little thing just for attention. But these questions need to be raised, because we're almost certainly not getting the real story from the approved anti-government activist sources. And for my part anyway, I try to accept everything I can, and only question what really deserves it. I don't think the event was made-up. I think there was a real and deadly event, that was vastly different than reported. The story told is based on some reality, but with details added, like a regime jet dropping sarin. I'm pretty sure that never happened.

But there's something real here to investigate. I'm sure the three kids hacked in the head or neck by local terrorists and included are real murder victims, not fakers (see here). I suspect it's over 100 killed as they say (and probably just over - I hear and suspect it's 103), including the reported 43 children. I suspect gas killed most of them, but primarily not sarin, while others were killed with blades, and all were killed by terrorists who have both blades and various poisonous gasses in their possession. 

I'm not blaming the victims in any of the suspected 103 fatal cases. But I have no problem blaming actors helping Islamists launder that massacre, as some of the victims we see probably are. Deciding who's who is tricky. I don't plan on doing much of that, but I'll call out two at least, and lay some reasons for doubting others.

Peeking Girl

As some (like Anders at New.Euro-Med.dk) have pointed out, at least one of the children shown in the famous 9 dead kids in a truck video is not dead. The older girl in the bottom row at first has both eyes closed and appears dead. The cameraman brushes her face just as he pans onto her (is that the signal for 'you're on camera now, so don't move'?) He shows her face, looking dead with eyes closed (first frames), pans left, then pans back, and her right eye is open (last frame). 

The relevance of the different angles could be debated, but either way, we can see in at first the two eyes match for degree op openness, and in the other case, the right eye is clearly more open than the left. In fact it seems to be starting to open just as he starts panning to the left (third frame). She might also crack a smile just as he pans up and a patch of sunlight makes it less than certain.

I'm not looking to argue fakery here, where mainly I suspect real mass murder. Maybe this girl was just declared dead too early? Maybe, but the signs point more to fakery. The reason for this stupid move would be unclear. Presumably, this is an unusual tack-on case, the cameraman's daughter maybe. We have one impostor among arrays of the clearly dead, but I suspect there are few if any others, and the dead people are primarily genuine.

The Sarin Was Faked - Who Helped?

Other among the living victims, mostly fighting age males, make a show of being random locals, wiggling or shaking in the mud, sometimes with foam on their faces.  Many or most of these could be actors, while some or maybe all of them could also be real - I'm no expert. But at the least, I suspect none of them was poisoned with the blamed nerve gas, sarin.

As noted, rescue workers handle the patients without any protective gear for the skin, even gloves (sarin spreads on contact and is extremely potent - a gas mask or surgical mask, like some have, would protect the face, but that simply isn't adequate to handle real sarin victims). It's said some workers suffered exposure (the White House claims to believe this and uses it as evidence to decide on sarin). But we don't see that on video among those handling the supposed victims, so the claim is likely untrue and at best unproven. 

Next, sarin has specific observable symptoms besides miosis (constricted pupils) and seizures/paralysis, which is all they show, other than some kind of "foam" around the mouth in some cases. 

- Misosis actually has several causes, some of which are alternate poisons of some interest, like opiates. But misos is the M in the standard sarin symptom acronym SLUDGEM. The other letters stand for Salivation (drooling), Lachrymation (tears), Urination, Diarrhea/defecation, Gastrointestinal distress, and Emesis (vomiting). (Wikipedia, SLUDGE syndrome). The excretory systems go as haywire as everything else, with these parts being visible on the outside. Yet, I don't think I've ever seen this with any of the alleged Syria CW attacks. In those against government soldiers or government-secured areas, the victims aren't shown. In those against rebel areas, they are, and no one displays the SLUDE syndrome. The same applies here: many victims are stripped to underwear, and as far as we can see, they haven't soiled themselves. They don't seem to vomit that we see, etc.

- Sarin also tends to cause cyanosis (a deepening blue shade to the skin, especially visible in the lips and beds of the fingernails.) This isn't universally, but common, and it's not exclusive; it has many other causes - but it should appear. Yet we see little if any cyanosis, and in fact lots of rosy cheeks (see an example below). It's hard to say if that excess red is just from being cold or might be a poison clue (pointing to hydrogen cyanide or caron monoxide, perhaps). But either way, it argues against sarin. 

- See also ACLOS: Chemical Questions

Another important note: Sarin kills very quickly, and the body also breaks it down very quickly - it's a race in microseconds. Survivors of severe exposure describe total paralysis, inability to breathe, their vision going black, and an overpowering sense of doom enveloping them within seconds, followed by loss of consciousness. Almost instantly you'll know how bad it is - if you survive the first minute, then most of the sarin is broken down and you'll probably survive and improve rapidly. If you don't, then it's too late anyway (something to that effect, I'm not sure on exact times - it could take a few minutes to decide - but not tens of minutes - and then maybe a few hours to recover). 

So I don't buy people exposed to sarin were trucked to this place, at the cave hospital on the east edge of Khan Sheykhoun, and were still laying in the mud and wiggling an hour or so later. (They say the attack was around 6:30-6:45 am, and these scenes seem to be a bit later, mostly between 7 and 8:30, by sunlight angles - see ACLOS section with handy list of shadow-length to time translations one can use to visually time a scene. The scene at right is probably around 8:00).

Again, this doesn't prove that everyone here is faking, just that - at least generally - it's not what activists said it was. There may be some real sarin cases in there somewhere, but most are either fakers, and people genuinely poisoned with something else.

Pathetic Perfomance

for example: a very clean-shaven young guy in clothing with English lettering - is this how he usually goeas around in this Islamist-run area, or was he just dressed up for the cameras? His distinct blue shirt seems to say "ATHL.(etic?) PERFOMANCE," but he gives a pathetic performance. First, he's seen in an early White Helmets video (see first seconds). I didn't time the video yet, but it's early - direct sunlight is barely entering this dug-in area, and this east corner is all in shadow.

Ostensibly, he was sleeping at home when he was gassed with sarin, was rescued, dressed in street clothes and his jacket, and then was driven here and partly stripped (they took off his jacket). Now, some time afterwards, he's seen "convulsing." In fact, it seems to get a bit more severe as he sees the camera approaching. But If he was hit with sarin, and survived it long enough to get here, he'd probably be recovering now, just lethargic and drained. But he's still gripped by a mellow, sustainable sort of wiggly "seizures" we see? Not buying it. I think he showed up to his job this day dressed and with his jacket, prepared to earn his pay.

He's sort-of gulping for air like a fish, which seems realistic for something that clogs the airways (like sarin would), but that also allows for such complex actions (sarin makes anything coherent like gulping or breathing difficult as all nerve ending go hyperactive at once). A red-faced boy here is doing the same, and it seems real in his case (0:10 in this video). But the pathetic faker is doing it all through his nose, as you can see above, with his mouth closed. In fact it's clenched shut, lips in tight, in a 'not-kissing-grandma' manner, or making a show of trying to not say something. Besides the fact that this too is probably impossible to do under sarin's effect, this makes no sense as a way to increase oxygen intake - the mouth brings in far more oxygen than the nose. I think it's pretty clear this guy has no real problem with his breathing.

Maybe his mouth is locked shut to keep in his one load of "foam" until the good camera arrived. It's the same guy seen in a White Helmets quality photo, with somewhat bubbly liquid running out of his re-closed mouth. This is more realistic, actually, than the usual shaving-cream style "foaming at the mouth" effect. But victims don't usually hold it in until the right camera appears.

This image is from some minutes later; he's in the same spot, but sunlight has broken across his face, and he's been hosed off since. Still, the alleged sarin seems in no hurry to kill this guy or let him go. As long as the cameras are running, it keeps racking his system, making him wiggle and causing one batch of foamy stuff he'd need to spit up at the right time. Another view shows he's had his shirt pulled up and pants pulled down to show clean whit underwear to underline that he was never exposed to sarin. But he did lay there faking it for some time - he's just as patient as this alleged sarin. Him, the alleged gas, and the cameras ...what a team! 

Conclusion
There seems to be a significant portion of fakery in this case. Nonetheless, the entire thing isn't just made up. People did surely die, I suspect over 100 as they say (and probably just over I hear and suspect 103), including the reported 43 children. There's nothing fake about the real core massacre here, just in the story it was packed in, and some of the people brought in to act out that story. The true story beneath that matters, and deserves a serious, impartial investigation, looking at the actual facts with blinders removed.

Idlib CW False-Flag Covers for Islamist Massacre

Idlib CW Massacre 4-4-2017 {masterlist}
Idlib CW False-Flag Covers for Islamist Massacre 

Adam Larson aka Caustic Logic
April 4-6, 2017
adds April 7, 9, 23, July 3, August 8

What the hell is with these people? They've got over 100 people dead in a Russian or Syrian attack with sarin nerve gas in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib province. At least 43 of those are said to be children. It's the second deadliest alleged CW attack of the whole war. They ask "Where is the world?" As usual, "the world" they refer to is not hovering over the reliable evidence or giving it any real consideration.

But this is reality. These people are real. Their deaths were real, happened a certain way for a certain horrible reason, and someone should pay. Getting it right should merit some care, shouldn't it? So there's an ACLOS page started (so far more on the talk page, check both)

Alleged Sarin Victims: Head-Hacked Kids

Just a little looking and we already have this from one NOT widely-circulated photo. Sophie MacNeill tweeted it and I've never seen it before, when it's so heart-wrenching I probably would have seen it a few times by now if it (publicly) existed before. Taking it as presented, anyway, we have a clear problem, that might explain why so few people have re-published this picture.

Another array of dead children in a dramatic screen grab that IS widely claimed as from this incident yields this: (false lead, sloppy work)

There might be more examples - analysis is ongoing (and as always, ACLOS is accepting new members...)

<add Aug 8>Late addition: more head/face-wounded kids, one of which, along with the girl seen above, were first seen as dead or dying CW victims without the wounds, having White Helmets rescuing them with hoses, while later they're seen dead with the wounds. Important stuff: two smokeing-gun head wounds.<end Aug 8>

Fainting is reported as widespread with the victims, so some would fall and hit their heads. That could explain the fair-haired, blue eyed boy at he bottom of the first image. But what happened to the others? Many victims were apparently gassed (like the other 5+ children in the truck bed of the famous video still used for the second image here). But some batches, maybe sent in by a brigade with technical ineptitude, wound up different.

We've seen this kind of thing before. It's unclear if some Islamists just don't like to really use chemicals, even when that's what they're alleging, or if they just do it wrong and have to finish the victims off with blades. (that seems to be the case with the survivor of the infamous Ghouta sarin massacre rebels finished off with a cut to the throat)

As noted in the ACLOS head wounds section, the suggested pattern in these images: children are killed by sharp blows to the head, while fighting age males (13 and up) have their throats sliced. This is almost standard for Islamist massacres that include women and children. The one likely "Shabih" as they probably called him - the teenage boy with likely neck injury - was put back among the children for this photo by more liberal-minded activists. I don't suspect they bothered showing us the men's section of this portion of the alleged sarin attack. They probably found that too obviously bloody even to share with their infidel dupes out here.

So we have an apparent massacre of children. It happened at the same time as and was merged right into an alleged government chemical attack. Full tally, likely over 100 as they say. (we have a growing VDC tally with names and some details - see here - so far 79 dead, all civilians: 35 men, 17 boys, 19 women, 8 girls and, as media reports claim, a Yousef family hit hard, with some 22 members all killed). In context, it's clear just who wanted a shitload of dead civilians at just that moment. I see no reason why some passing jet should want to help them out by dropping sarin on them.

Confirming the first image:
This photo has the same low (early-morning?) sunlight seen in other images from this attack, and the victims are naked and washed-off, as if contaminated with chemicals. So it seems to be part of this. It's key evidence, and I hope to get more certainty (maybe they'll argue it was just a mix-up).

Quopa on Twitter ventures 2 possible matches to children seen in a video attributed to this incident, and perhaps the most shown. Looking at it, I venture another two tentative matches. Qupoa used numbers from something else that confuse me, so I'll re-start with the kids numbered left-to-right. He (or she?) matched #1 here and #2 tentatively. I add 3 and 4. Matching features circled (forehead injury, yellow things in hair, peculiar front curls of wet hair). #4 is distinctly non-distinct, with hollows under the eyes and that certain degree of gasp.

Between them, chances are these are the same four, and we can be more clear these are in fact alleged CW attack victims, with the violent injuries. Only the most obvious case doesn't seem to appear there (or did we just miss him?)

Verifying Neck Wound 
In-Detail Post (added September)

(Added 4/9): Boy 3's matching image raises a question about his neck wound - it's not visible. Well, if it was an all-across slice we'd see it, but maybe it was just the left side (our right), and wouldn't be visible at this tucked angle – maybe that's why they tucked his chin into his shoulder like that. But the blanket beneath him seems to be red with blood there... it's not just shadow – other patches go blue-black (in the blue circles), but this is blue-purple/brown-red-black He's bleeding from somewhere around the neck, clearly on his left side. Presumably the worst of that bleeding happened somewhere else, prior to washing. But it still leaks, and he's been on that blanket for some time. #2, the girl, probably has the same brown spot under her head as the wound is turned away from the cameras.

The Second Image (added 4/9): 
I was slow to notice there are at least two stills of this scene, where almost every kid has moved or been moved (see ACLOS posting: higher resolution view is current, earlier view still visible below). So, I suppose they're alive and wiggling, not dead at all. The head wound is quite possibly a wet hair illusion. The higher resolution view clarifies that's the case with the kid marked "?", so maybe with the other. (His head is off-frame in the better view).

Also, some have noted a mark across the neck of the boy marked "?" (washed out in the view here, but it's present), taking it as a sign of strangulation perhaps. But that's  far from clear. It isn't any shade of red or purple, like damaged skin would be. I propose this is a line of mud from when he had a hose dragged across his neck, or something similar and irrelevant.

Added 4-23: Another analysis suggests that might be a head wound after all, and the same boy has an apparent abrasion next to his left eye. And the other boy's neck mark still might be something relevant.

Shrapnel Wounds? (Important Note added 4-23) 
 It's important to consider, as I didn't clearly, that there was standard bombing alleged in this attack. So gas and tipping over are not the only things to expect, but perhaps some shrapnel wounds or crushed, dusty people. Just about anything is possible in a violent explosion, but it's still quite a coincidence if he wave 2 likely fatal head wounds with no other marks on the younger kids,  and a bleeding neck wound, bruises and nothing else, for the one they'd call an adult.  It could be just that coincidence among arrange victims, or as I still suspect, a sign of Islamist murder. 

More Wounded Kids (added 4-23)
Petri Krohn noted two more examples of boys with head/neck wounds and bruising. However, these don't appear as likely execution-related, and not fatal at all, that we see.  These could be actual deaths from an explosion with unseen body wounds, injuries from some blast who were then gassed, or a coiple of things. Just hacked at a bit for effect, to help explain those other kids, who know?

A Spot of Fakery?
moved - see The Fakers

Hostages? Where From?
That's my presumption by now for anything like this. The slaughter clues noted above show why. Paul Antonopoulos at Al-Masdar News Adds this:

It is known that about 250 people from Majdal and Khattab were kidnapped by Al-Qaeda terrorists last week. Local sources have claimed that many of those dead from the chemical weapons were those from Majdal and Khattab.

That seriously wasn't known to me until I read that. Wow.

<add 7/3>https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=92a_1490988323#8qBTEl4wq6wPxqrA.99 March 31:

Syrian Arab Army forces continued their counter-offensive operation in the northern Hama countryside, Friday. The forces managed to launch an offensive against opposition fighters close to the village of Khattab and capture the village. The SAA also captured several more villages in northern Hama countryside including Al-Majdal, Soubein, and Al-Shayr.
A Ruptly video is shown of offensive - soldiers in the town at the end - it seems empty, no one greeting them, but there was no immediate news of mass abduction. 

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/jihadist-rebels-kidnap-civilians-fleeing-village-northern-hama/ April 4 is the first report I've seen, from Al-Masdar News, with no number specified, but a family member explaining “the jihadists then took them all to Khan Sheikhoun.” The same day (later, I guess) Al-Masdar reports it was 250 taken and possibly used for the attack. Another source says it was 120 (couldn't find it at the moment) <end 7/3>

Consider also these 3 entries turned up looking into the mystery of the W77 trucks:

Local IDs are already claimed, or something to that effect (unclear). However, it should be noted something that obvious stands a good chance of being untrue, and even a can serve as a distraction. Quite likely, they killed some other big batch of hostages. Consider these precedents:

* 2013 Ghouta chemical massacre: widespread claims, including supposed victim IDs, that the victims were hostages seized in Latakia a couple of week earlier - seemed almost too obvious, victims have been mostly geo-located to Ghouta - they were different, more local, less famous hostages - efforts to correlate that were wasted (ie, it distracted)

* 2014 Chlorine attacks, Hama-Idlib border region: victims were said to be displaced from other towns in the area, almost musical-chairs in nature. They said none were from Ma'an, where about 80 (Alawi) civilians were abducted about two months before the first gassed IDP report came in - connection not proven either way yet - might be too obvious, but still worth a look. There are images for a few of them.

Here: in just this same Hama-Idlib border region, Claims of IDs from abduction of perhaps hundreds of civilians - possibly too obvious, but they might be behind the last entry, so maybe not. Here there are plenty of images to check. Stakes are high. So, again, might be too obvious. I suggest investigators (in Syria especially, of course) need to stake and take two paths: check against Majdal and Khattab abductees, and consider other clues they're hostages anyway, whoever and from wherever. 

Dr. Islam, Kidnapper

At least  one video was taken inside what seems to be a clinic where a Dr. Shajul Islam works. He recently covered a chlorine attack of March 25, claiming to have victims there, and tweeted a video saying that, as one died behind him (he was too busy appealing to the world in his self-famous perfect English), but the tweet's text said they think it was sarin. Maybe just a mix-up, I presumed, but now he is on April 3 reporting sarin and clarifying it is not chlorine. So did he know this was coming? Was the March 30 attack some hybrid where chlroine and sarin were used, and are we now to sarin attacks again? 

Dr. Islam, with the possible cover-story for a hostage massacre, is a known kidnapper (or accomplice, etc. - it was a serious legal case). As Pmr9 alerts us at the ACLOS talk page:

He had been arrested on returning to the UK from Syria in 2012, and charged with kidnapping two journalists: John Cantlie, and Jeroen Oerlemans. However the trial collapsed when the two victims failed to appear as prosecution witnesses: Cantlie had been kidnapped again alongside James Foley. It's not clear what happened to Oerlemans. This didn't stop the General Medical Council, which is not bound by the same rules of evidence, from striking him off.

He qualified in London,but was struck off the UK medical register in 2013, presumably over thisissue (cited: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1831). But a key witness didn't show up, so Dr. Islam wasn't convicted, and was allowed to go back to Syria and lodge these explanations for large numbers of dead Syrians, with an emphasis on appealing for outside intervention on video. He's apparently working with the French-based UOSSM, who back the sarin claims and the 100+ death toll, and helped lodge the similar claims from ISIS-held areas of Hama last December, that Russian jets had dropped sarin gas, killing at least 93 civilians (that was little noted, but now the same might be claimed in the turf of the overtly foreign-supported Islamist "opposition"... )  

Location Ambiguity 

This may be nothing, but ... as Petri Krohn argues at ACLOS, and I agree, about 85%, (we thought) the White Helmets videos showed the Latanmah cave hospital, some ways from Khan Shiekhoun. That might become a story discrepancy - it's a lot closer to Khatab and Majdal. But it's not so strange people would be trucked over there from Khan Sheikhoun if the hospital was decent and not full of chlorine. (Petri now says it must be a different place and I won't argue. It did seem a decent fit if filmed in the late afternoon, but the sun did seem a little too low - it didn't prove anything anyway, and let's skip the pointless graphic I had)

This is just one location involved in this incident. Other victims are shown somewhere in Khan Shekhoun or another city around there (I'm not clear yet...), being trucked in from somewhere, offloaded at a clinic, etc. Where they were allegedly exposed is unclear to me so far.

Petri Krohn has some serious points about the lack of such specifics or any evidence for a rescue operation, here. Further, he's found a location match he's certain of, right by Khan Sheikhoun (here on Google Maps). I'm presuming he's right. (I've been really busy lately and can't do as much as I'd like. Thank goodness everyone else is on the case.)

The Case Against "Syria's Disappeared"

(quick version)
March 31, 2017
(incomplete)

Note: quick version still doesn't mean short version. I weigh in heavily on one aspect. I may do a fuller review later, but maybe not. This may be good enough.

Syria's Disappeared: The Case Against Assad
I was late to learn of this mockumentary recently aired by UK's channel 4, and since gone "viral." Some first links:
http://syriasdisappeared.com/
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/on-demand/65453-001
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/mar/26/syrias-disappeared-the-case-against-assad-vera-love-girls

from the Guardian link:

"Mansour al-Omari, who courageously smuggled out details of other prisoners written on scraps of cloth in rust and blood." That's got to be real, right? In the program, Omari says a tailor in the cell sewed them up into his collar to smuggle out. We have the smuggled "Caesar Photos," the smuggled "Assad Files (see below)" and now ... "The Mazzeh Scraps"? Like Schindler's List via the Turin Shroud via the Tailor of ... whatever, I'm not good with this part... This is quite a story. It's allegedly been sitting there since (late 2012?) and so far, no one I've noticed has even mentioned it until just now. Is that because it was just dreamed up and fabricated recently? Or because someone was keeping it secret as war crimes evidence? I mean, you don't go smearing that all over the TV news.... at least not until just now, for some reason.

I haven't watched the whole program (various postings around - this one has worked for me so far). Of course, I'm not the target audience, but I for one am never too choked-up-to-think-straight by how the piano notes and "human stories" line up in such videos. I don't trust these people. One important alleged former prisoner is Mazen Alhummada - they show documents that name this guy and say he's wanted for arrest in connection with something - that was alrady noted, and he's stuck to the story he told to Ben Taub last year as Mazen al-Hamada for the New Yorker. For the most part then, 'nuff said already.

I could share my thoughts on him and the other witnesses, but I don't have time to analyze them all, and my initial thoughts were coming out terse and almost vulgar, so ...  let's skip what some would call victim-blaming until I'm better-informed, and take a good hard look at what the hired Euro-American white guy professionals are bringing to the picture.

How Bill Wiley Found Nothing and Spun It
And let's skip that smiley goofball Stephen Rapp. He could be just a clueless, senile prop who "might remember the holocaust" and really knows nothing of the direct evidence or the tricks being pulled, and get all his assessments from someone who looks at it for him. (He could also be a directly involved slimeball, I'm not at all sure.)

Let's skip to Bill Wiley, the aged but fit Canadian investigator of war crimes, and at once skip to - paperwork! The video emphasizes this, perhaps knowing their witnesses seem dubious and need the help. To get any screen time, paperwork better be damn interesting. They say it's "thousands" of official documents relating to mass arrests, which rebels seized in various overrun spots. I'll consider what glimpses of these are shared. I'd love to have a look at these things (well-translated), but that won't be allowed.

This is something I took a decent (but somewhat cursory) look at last year when it came up in the New Yorker as the "Assad Files," in the piece by Ben Taub citing Mr. Hamada. Bill Wiley was cited in that, apparently having introduced the witness and the journalist in the first place. He was working on these documents with US lawyer Chris Engels, who led (then if not now) "the regime-crimes unit of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), an independent investigative body founded in 2012, in response to the Syrian war." (read: privately-funded think-tank/whatever they want - funding isn't clear, but likely Saudi, Qatari, etc.).

Engels doesn't seem to appear in this new film, but Wiley does, eagerly, as a central narrator and guide for "Syria's Disappeared." 

After the papers were seized by foreign-supported militants, the CIJA pored over them. It seems evident to me they found nothing real to support their case, just a few things that could be spun as seemingly ominous. (The rebels who found the papers probably saw no value in them either, and gladly let some Western lawyer-types have a whack at the useless stuff. Good call!)

While it's reasonable to wonder if the documents are fake, to me they seem to be genuine, reflecting the methods of stopping what they call a "crisis." Did they know it was all peaceful? It seems like they thought it was violent, but the selective quotations leave this unclear.

Consider: as explained in the last review, the best mention of torture offered so far was the head of Deir Ezzor’s military intelligence branch expressing his "outrage" (is that code?) on hearing some moderately sever torture (including electrocution and sodomizing with soda) was being used in some places. It's not certain it was, but maybe, and he heard it said. He ordered that if it was happening it be stopped. Apparently no order to start, or to start anything worse, anywhere, has been found yet.

Seeing how weak this was, it seems the CIJA or at least Mr. Wiley have endeavored to connect that with lots of outside information. - mainly the highly dubious "former prisoner" stories - and tried to tie it in with other allegations like the "Caesar photos." And they try to do so in the media to influence the public, for some reason (will the public be calling in the verdict like some reality TV show when it comes to trial?)

So in a roundabout way, they seem to almost prove there was no systematic criminal repression, mass torture-extermination-genocide program, etc. as constantly alleged over the years. There was a lot of this alleged. If it was true, authorities would have to talk about at least some of it in these documents, and the CIJA would find it and show us that. But so far they're holding back anything good they might have found. Every time they offer what seems to be an example, it fails, like the "outrage" memo. I wonder if they realize that.

"You Ought to Listen to What They Have to Say"

At 22:35 in the video is what should be one of the stronger points in these documents, the way it's highlighted.  Wiley reads from a certain document dated September 11, 2011 (as I read the bottom date). They don't mention the date maybe because it reminds folks of crisis and terrorism, which is something they're not mentioning in regard to this "crisis" in Syria.

Wiley says "quote," then continues with presumably continuous language from one spot on the page.

"Parents and relatives of the arrested persons are daily asking about the fate of sons, fathers, and brothers. You ought to listen to what they have to say. The hospital refrigerator is full of unidentified corpses that have disintegrated since they have been there for a long period of time."

I think this was already quoted. I don't have it all memorized. In fact, yes... they already shared this with Ben Taub. This one seems important to them, and to Taub as well. This "dramatic" passage closes a section in the New Yorker piece:

In September, the public attorney in Deir Ezzor sent three faxes—later retrieved by the CIJA’s investigators—to the governor, the Syrian minister of justice, and the head of the province’s joint investigation committee, urging them to stop violating Syrian law. In one, he wrote, “Parents and relatives of the arrested persons are asking daily about the fates of sons, fathers, and brothers. You ought to listen to what they have to say. The hospital refrigerator is full of unidentified corpses that have disintegrated, since they have been there for a long period of time.”

I didn't analyze the passage then, but will now. The bolded part should have a better supporting quote. No direct quote about the law or bending or breaking it is shared. It might be supported, but sounds more like this is someone's wording for a notion poorly inferred from the part they do share.

I'll see about getting a translation of the header as shown, to get more context. But ... basically, someone's explaining how people have been arrested (by them? or is it possible he's cutting out the "abducted by terrorists" part?). Their relatives are asking about them daily, and they're saying something that makes him (or her) say "you ought to listen to what they have to say" - in what sense is not clear. (They have legitimate gripes? They're spouting terrorist propaganda and absurd accusations?)

Also, there are people winding up dead, probably just found and held by the government as unidentified bodies, whose families they can't locate, that are rotting. This is a real problem, it seems, which Damascus remains quiet about but would blame terrorists for. (see the Hamza al-Khatib/Saida massacre case) They'd probably be right. At some point as it got even worse, it seems they largely skipped the refrigeration and went straight to burial after documentation. I suppose those order will be selectively cited somewhere in the CIJA case.

So, in the quote above, I'm pretty sure the bodies clause is separate from the arrestees issue. It's possible that what the families "have to say" is that bodies are piling up in the hospital refrigerators. But that would be strange; that's more like a thing the hospital knows. So after laying out two apparent problems that happened to be mentioned side-by-side, Wiley notes this document was sent to the minister of justice. And so the highest levels were informed of  "THIS LOCALIZED PROBLEM." Singular. 

Which problem does he mean? The frustrated families or the dead bodies? Maybe both at once? THE PROBLEM, if one insists on squishing all that together, must be the arrested people are being killed and stuffed in refrigerators, and their families know about this and are telling authorities about it. And here that fact is being communicated to the minister of justice. (but they must have already known about it, having previously ordered it done ... somewhere Wiley didn't find yet?)

As the video narrator notes right after, the government knows just who they arrested. But in secret papers between themselves, they must pretend dead prisoners are "unidentified," as some kind of code? But isn't it the families saying there's "unidentified corpses" piling up? Or, wait ...

This all makes fairly little sense, so he's probably just misreading it, while I'm reading it right.I suggest he just found one spot like this in the thousands of papers, where worry over the fate of prisoners is mentioned right next to dead bodies, and ran it together in his wily style. That's probably no mistake, but an intentional, strategic misrepresentation of the evidence. He did it to earn a paycheck though, to be fair. And it was probably a big-ass check.

If this were a fluke, then most other documents probably wouldn't have such handy devices, with thoughts better organized into separate paragraphs, etc.. Hence this one oft-repeated best example. And they had thousands of communications, recall. This works against you when all you can come up with from all of that is a few apparent tricks like this. It means you have thousands of papers that don't support your case, and in fact pretty much disprove it.

Again, let's consider what they apparently didn't they find in this case:
- anything in this document to clarify it really says what Wiley implies it does.
- Any prior order to exterminate prisoners and stuff them in the hospital morgue
- Any other document explaining that "unidentified" is a code for "prisoner"

So ... how were these orders transmitted from the leaders who need to be held accountable (and we're not naming names)? Or ... gasp ... was Assad not in charge of this? Or ... gasp ... was this not even real to begin with? Are these crimes simply made up from such wordplay?

Put simply: The papers say arrest people. All that other stuff making it sound horrific and genocidal is coming from activists, some of whom claim to be direct witnesses. And it doesn't seem the paperwork supports any of their juiciest claims.

Re-Hashing Another Best Example:

Ben Taub helped tout another important document about a month before the above one. On Aug. 5, 2011, there was a national crisis management cell established to coordinate a national response to (crush all peaceful dissent?) the "crisis." It seems they felt some need to find who was behind whatever and arrest them. The documents from that act form "the linchpin of the CIJA’s case against officials in the Syrian regime," as Taub put it. Wiley explained it would implicate officials, because “their names are all over those documents." 

Apparently, it shows all the top levels discussing the need to arrest more people in many areas, and try to coordinate the whole thing. Nothing criminal was found, or at least specified, in the documents.

Not mentioned: in the first days of August there was growing condemnation of Syrian forces for killing 100 peaceful protesters in Hama on July 31, for the first time hitting triple-digits in one place and one day. The US issued its first soft demands for Assad to "step aside" over this crime, and more support and weapons, and Libyans, would be flowing in soon. Bad news for the government - they shouldn't have killed all those people.

Best evidence says they didn't. Militants overran a police station in Hama, killing 13 soldiers and police, and abducting at least 13 others, who were executed  and dumped in the river the next morning, the killers shouting Allahu Akbar. This is video proven, geo-located, CNN reported on it, etc. Check if needed. The rebels didn't mention clashes or 26 police and soldiers killed, just about 75-85 unarmed civilian men shot dead somehow, and ... (unspecified, but it must be 15-25+ somebodies) for a total of "at least 100 deaths in Hama, after tanks and soldiers stormed the city" according to activists (Al-Jazeera). US President Obama said "The reports out of Hama are horrifying and demonstrate the true character of the Syrian regime," while the video proof of an Islamist massacre against captured government servants there ... must be fake or whatever, as "activists" lamely argued. 

The rest of the August 5 document(s) will likely mention these events as backdrop, but this isn't given, maybe because Wiley et al. don't want you to see the real context. But taking this case as an example of alleged crimes there's still no support for ... still, it seems they have found:

 - no orders from those days to kill protesters and fake police deaths in Hama (all improvised locally?)
- no document praising local forces for killing like 75-85 civilians and faking some police deaths in Hama, as the kind of clever thinking they encourage

No. Instead, a few days later, they act like BAD things have been happening recently, and there's some growing CRISIS that needs addressed more forcefully. And this, again, is the CIJA's "linchpin" in their case of epic Human Rights abuses, simply put back in its proper context.  What gives?

Conclusion

What gives is the credibility of this Bill Wiley and any investigation he's involved with. This guy creeps me out. Career war crimes investigator, as he says near the beginning, hoping this Syria case will be his "last act." It seems to be a criminal act, but he'd know more of the details than me. Previously he helped put away Slobodan Milosevic as independent and powerful Yugoslavia was torn apart based on dubious claims, and he's worked on Rwanda. No need with Libya - officials are all dead or locked up in Libya with no cooperation. Lucky break there. But he's doing the Syria job, focused on these papers - but by and large, we can see these do not support the CIJA politicized case and in fact probably undermine it powerfully, when seen in their true context. 

I'll keep repeating this: they have found and will continue to find no orders:

- to stations snipers here or there, to shoot protesters,  and/or police and soldiers, to stoke tensions and create a pretext for mass arrests
- to kill soldiers who refuse to open fire,
- to fake attacks, plant weapons, or smear the protesters,
- to arrest innocents and everyone, make prisoners confess to false crimes
- to starve, neglect, beat, or torture the prisoners (there may some lines arguably to the effect of the last point, but so far just one guy who heard it might be happening, and ordering that it be stopped if it was),
- no orders to have "Shabiha" militias exterminate whole Sunni villages, either systematically or in any particular case
- to genocidally target Sunnis, steal their property, kill all their relatives, rape their women, attack mosques, make them kneel to photos of Assad and declare him their only god, etc. No orders will ever be found. ...
- to systematically drop barrel bombs only on big gathering of civilians and markets, and never on rebel fighters
- to target hospitals, schools, orphanages, etc.
- to impose a total siege, food and baby formula not allowed, etc. 
- to deploy the chemical weapons, in any of the many alleged cases 

 - any of the many, many alleged crimes Wiley would love to have support for. He has plenty of material and has it well-searched, he says - but no clear support for any of these things is mentioned. This suggests they never talked about any of that. They talked about some crisis, and about arrests.

Fake! I call his bluff on that stated confidence about this going to trial. If Damascus has the originals of these, hell yes they could cross-examine it in court. They could show the papers Wiley skips, the lines he skips, the context he must be willfully ignoring as he mines for these nuggets of fool's gold. He doesn't want that exposed. He wants the impression put on TV with good mood music added. He and others just want more vague, emotion-based group-think mobilized against those on their geopolitical hit-list. The usual. And this talk of "evidence" and "justice" is how you trick people into supporting that.  

Wiley definitely shouldn't keep talking on video and showing specific examples like that.  His dark magic works better in secret. Yugoslavia, Rwanda - I'd say his involvement constitutes a question mark over both of those cases. Who in Rwanda was on the West's hit list? I'd have to look into that. 

Side points:

@7:20 - dubbed audio? Apparent pro-gov protest, w/massive streamer in the Syrian national colors, and people even dressed in them? (A lot of red shirts together anyway). Audio: chants of the people want the fall of the regime. Anyone know this particular scene? This recurs: protests that look huge and pro-Assad, with clear anti-Assad audio. I won't call fake until I know. some early protests especially made a point of chanting "peaceful" and waving only Syria's flag. But were they ever that big? And here they say "fall of regime," and wave the flag, so ... Don't think I've seen that before. 

(Also, with those early protests, there were usually guys on motorcycles and rooftops and minarets at the same time, going around doing something, but who cares about that? The protests were peaceful peaceful lovey-dovey, and that's the only part Assad cracked down on, because he's a genocaidal maniac. Anyway, that's the basic picture that emerges here, in the "hidden story" of the Syrian Arab Spring ("hidden" meaning widely-repeated with no question)). 

Alleged Chlorine Attack in Latamna

Syria Chlorine Allegations: March 25, 2017, Latamna, Hama
March 26-29, 2017
(incomplete)
edits March 30 

Update 12-24-2019: I never did revise or expand thos post much. Instead, I recently replaced it with a new, much more detailed investigation. With a good deal of crowd-sourced assistance, numerous details, conflict, and strange clues emerged. See More on the alleged chlorine attack of 25 March. 2017

First News and First Thoughts
Yet again, as the UN Security council debates sanction over Syria's alleged use of chlorine gas as a weapon, someone has to thumb their noes with a poignant reminder mid-day on March 25 ... no news reports, just tweets so far, including these:

* "2 killed and 30 injured in chlorine strike against hospital in #Hama." - RevolutionSyria
* "Multiple reports of use of #Chlorine gas near #Hama by regime against hospitals in #Latamneh. Medical staff were killed @CNN @BBCWorld @NPR" - Zaher Sahloul
* "Dr. Ali Darwish passed away after he was injured this noon by the #Assad chlorine attack on Alatamneh hospital" - Mohamad Khatoub

This last comes with a photo of the deceased, cropped here:

Consulting the ACLOS alleged chlorine attack checklist ... he has no clear chlorine indicators: His dark. hooded eyes look tired, not damaged or tearing. He has normal skin tone with no red irritation, and no cyanosis (his lips aren't visible, but his fingernail beds are not blue at all). The mask suggests (but doesn't prove) some breathing problem, but there's no sign of coughing blood, or a red face from violent coughing. And there's no bleaching of his shirt. This isn't definitive, but it seems more than likely he was not killed by chlorine after all. 

For an example of what he should look like, refer to a firefighter called in for rescue work after an alleged rebel chlorine attack in the government-held part of Aleppo's Old City, on August 2, 2016. It's said he was one of 13 people who died when rockets were fired by Harakat Noureddin al-Zenki (the infamous advocates of child beheading). Note his swollen eyes pouring tears, skin redness and mild blue tint (cyanoisis, from low blood oxygen), and blood from the mouth or nose. This is an extreme case, but it's likely Dr. Darweesh would be too, if he was exposed for long, in an underground hospital. But any signs are so faint it seems there just aren't any.

Dr. Darwish shows none of that. This is standard, actually, for the fake type of chlorine attacks consistently reported by the murderous and science-impaired Syrian Islamist opposition.

more forthcoming...

Basic locale: Lattamna = Al-Lataminah on Wikimapia
The hospital is dug into a cave area, they say to withstand regime and Russian bombing. White Helmets provide this photo of the entrance.

Syria Direct 

Syria Direct has a detailed report others (like EA Worldview) are citing.  According to this, the hospital "was set up in November 2016, one month after the town’s sole medical clinic was destroyed by a reported Russian airstrike."

A helicopter dropped a large yellow canister through the concrete roof of the Latamna Surgical Hospital at 1:30pm on Saturday afternoon, Abadah al-Mansour, the hospital’s spokesman told Syria Direct on Sunday.

Chlorine gas was then released, he claims, spreading throughout the rooms of the underground hospital. Without sufficient ventilation for the gas, 35 people were injured—14 of them medical personnel—and three were reportedly killed, including a surgeon.

Orthopedic surgeon Doctor Ali al-Darwish was operating on a patient when gas reportedly entered the hospital. “He refused to leave so he could save the patient,” said al-Mansour. “He paid the price for that with his life, and the operating technician and anesthesiologist are still in critical condition.” The patient al-Darweesh was operating on also died.

Troubling report on the symptoms: “most of the injured suffered from fainting, red eyes and shortness of breath”, the Hama Civil Defense reported. Shortness of breath plus massive pain and severe coughing, check. red eyes, check (but not evident with the one seen fatality). Fainting, no. As I recently explained here, rebels in Syria think chlorine makes victims black out or become paralyzed, leading them to lay there breathing in too much gas. But elsewhere, at other times ... in the world ... that's not true. This running claim is bogus, and suggests they rarely deal with real chlorine cases, and instead they're encountering something different or, more likely, they just keep reading off the same poorly-researched chlorine symptoms they were handed once long ago.

Other sources
(from Twitter)
photos
https://twitter.com/HadiAlabdallah/status/846103320880201729
https://twitter.com/RevlutionSyria/status/845754195722588160
video
https://twitter.com/EatingMyPeaz/status/846043234094723074

Cylinder and Damage Analysis
In the Syria Direct piece, a Doctor Abdullah a-Darweesh (no relation?) provides this photo of the gas cylinder allegedly dropped from a helicopter.

I'm still not confident saying how high up this must have fallen from, or if it could be deformed some other way, like launched against a wall at high speed. It is some pretty serious distortion, and I can see why people might presume it was dropped from a helicopter thousands of feet above.

Also, I'm no expert, but the way the distorted end is so strikingly flat, it looks like it hit concrete laid on the ground and flattened against it, not like it broke through unsupported concrete.

Here's how the concrete looks where they say this thing punched through:

Initially, the damage looks ok, likely enough space for a canister to fall through - at least, if it weren't so deformed along the way. The damage isn't obviously fake, but I don't think it really lines up with that squished-flat gas tank. However, it might...

At least four other photos of the canister are around, but here's a good image of a close-up view of the distorted end compared to another view. The corner photo shows an apparent indent on the rim, perhaps the size of the reinforcement bars in the concrete ... that is one point in favor of it lining up after all.

Highlighted markings: CL (meaning chlorine, as this color of yellow paint is also meant to indicate) and a familiar V logo and name NORINCO CAF. The same appeared in the first attacks in 2014, and NORINCO was said to be a Chinese arms maker, meaning these were designed as weapons. Not sure if this was proven either way, but I'd guess NORINCO also makes other stuff, including chlorine tanks, which Syria bought some of, before they were stolen and used for these incidents.

VDC

VDC query, all Hama deaths by shelling and warplane shelling on 3-25: the doctor Ali al-Darweesh, doctor, from Kaferzita, is listed as killed in Lattamna by Syrian forces. He's listed as killed by "warplane shelling," but the entry notes "due to the air regime's helicopters shelling of chlorine-fired." No one else is specified as dying by chlorine or in the hospital.  A shepherd boy from Lattamna is listed as killed by artillery shelling - was he the patient Dr. Darwish allegedly died treating? Wounded by the shelling (or whatever) but actually died, supposedly, from the chlorine?

Three other Hama people were displaced to Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib (just 10 km north) before they were killed there this day, by Russian warplane shelling, of course. The two women are married, and one - Fatima Mohammad Abd al-Samad al-Satouf - is from Latamna. The other, Ietidal al-Awad, is from Taibet Al-Imam, and listed as the "wife of Mohammad Abd Alsamad Alsatouf." (so he had a wpoman's name added and got listed wrong?) Also a guy from Morek died in the same incident. At least 8 Idlib people, 7 from a Merati family, were alos killed by bombing in Khan Sheikhoun this day, but with the bombing blamed on Syrian forces. So was the other attack against some IDP shelter?

Anyway, this all has no clear relation to the incident under study, and so the VDC's records seems to help little in this case.

Takfiri Terrorists Pushing for a Third Ma'an Massacre?

Adam Larson aka Caustic Logic
March 23, 2017
(imcopmplete) 

Hama offensive: the Islamist multinational forces in Hama province are trying hard to break the pattern of defeat they've suffered lately. In recent days they've overrun several towns and are pushing further on several fronts, including towards the city of Hama itself, and getting dangerously close. Hama has never remotely been overrun by rebels, just much of the provincial countryside. Latest Peto Lucem map (Twitter) shows a bad situation trying to form.

This will be routed, but perhaps not easily. I haven't followed in detail, but will catch up (random prominent link: SyriaDirect report on the advances). In lieu of newsy analysis, some recent history as a backgrounder...

Along the north-eastern immediate front-line area (cropped below), note the villages of Ma'an, Tulaysia, al-Zughba, still holding under government control, but threatened. These (and others, unclear all which) are primarily Alawi (Alawite) villages, maybe sparsely-populated by now, and hopefully with good evacuation plans. The same foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists have overrun these villages in the past, and it was horrific and genocidal.

In late 2012, as rebels struggled to create the huge green area shown above, they were frustrated by the holdout areas they say hosted attacks on them, as they expanded towards crucial Morek. In mid-December, they launched the "Ma'an Offensive" to take out this and other Alawi towns. Not to sectarian ... it just had to be done - military strategy. Up to December 23, rebels updated us on their push right up to their stated goal. A fighter jet was shot down. Quietly, Islamists showed off videos of dozens of soldiers and local militiamen slaughtered and dumped outside Zughba. But ... Did they ever take Ma'an? They remain vague.

The SOHR heard and reported with some worry that Islamist rebels did overrun and occupy the town, from Dec. 24-26. Rebels don't confirm. A week later, they announced by the way, there was a massacre in Maan on Dec. 25. Rebels had been there but left, and then regime forces came in, and massacred the few Sunnis in town. As reported to Der Spiegel, in Holocaust-sensitive Germany, "members of the Shabiha militia in the village of Maan, in Hama province, have beheaded 23 people." We suspected there was a 2012 Ma'an massacre (ACLOS page), but no one else reported it (the SOHR didn't have this part reported to them).

In February 2014, they did it again, smashing defenses and raising the black Shihada flag over Ma'an, abducting nearly 100 citizens after executing dozens of others in a 2014 Ma'an massacre. About 40 civilians and 20 soldiers were reportedly killed. As usual, they primarily killed fighting age men, every one they could get their hands on. And they usually count from age 13 up, with a vague or non-existent upper end. No massacre there was reported this time. Instead, most of the dead were apparently laundered as victims of two Shabiha massacres in Sunni towns nearby (26 men and an older boy were shot dead in Souran, and all 17 mixed-family killings happened over in Jalama).

A few others got laundered in different ways. They say regime shelling hit a bus near Tamanah (was in northbound, maybe, fleeing from Ma'an on the one axis they left open for civilians to escape by? Maybe.) After it was hit, rebels in the area boarded it and photographed three women they found with heads sliced apart byt eh "shelling," but looking more like the work of a sword. This is the kind of investigative reporting regime-change supporters rely on for their lists of unacceptable regime crimes.

We have no direct proof, but it's likely the 80 or so hostages, mostly women, children, and elderly, were used as raw material for various alleged attacks by government forces over the following months. Notably, almost every fatal chlorine gas attack rebels phoned in during 2014 was nearby and after the Ma'an raid. Allegedly, these attacks managed to kill just members of "displaced" families. In the first case, the chlorine apparently failed, and they say two immediate deaths (a young girl and an old man) actually died of head wounds from the barrel bomb's impact, but they didn't show these wounds to see if they too might be sword-shaped. 

One detailed report explains the 2014 massacre in Ma'an, plus the little-known 2012 massacre there, as we had noted. (SyriaNews.cc) Now in March, 2017, they're pushing forward in the same area, perhaps more savvy, but also more desperate to deal some major blows to their enemies - the people of Syria. Hopefully there won't be a third Ma'an Massacre. But it wouldn't be surprising if there was such a blatant crime against humanity, and if there is, it will be yet more innocent blood crusting the hands of those criminals sponsoring these genocidal gangs of terrorist mercenaries.