On April 11, the White Hosue released a “declassified four-page report” on the alleged chemical weapons attack in the village of Khan Shaykhun in the Syrian province of Idlib.
The United States accuses the Syrian and Russian government in providing a disinformation and “false narratives” over the attack, adding that Washington is sure that the Assad government is responsible for the attack.
However, the report provides only a “summary” of the United States vision of the situation. According to it, the United States have intelligence and evidence of the attack but it cannot provide it because they are classified…
The report says that the Syrian government maintains a capability to conduct chemical weapons attack to prevent “the loss of territory deemed critical to its survival”. Then, the “declassified” report just retells the story provided by hard-core “pro-opposition” media outlets and activists -in other words, supporters of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and Ahrar al-Sham (a radical islamist group that cooperated with ISIS until 2014). It should be noted that the report added some “fresh” facts to the opposition story – for example, it argues that some “personnel historically associated with Syria’s chemical weapons program” were at the Shayarat military airfield. However, this part lacks evidence.
Guys from the White House have also hardly seen the current maps of northern Hama and Syria if they really believe that the “Assad regime” suffers some notable setbacks across the country or in northern Hama itself.
By April 4, pro-government forces had reverced almost all gains of the “opposition forces” led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the report forgets to mention this) in northern Hama. Since then, the situation has been more or less stable. Furthermore, Khan Shaykhun is far away from the current frontline.
Click to see the full-size map
Meanwhile, the Syrian government is in control of the city of Aleppo, a large area east of it and its forces are advancing in the Palmyra countryside.
Click to see the full-size map
According to the report, it’s nice time to use some “chemical weapons” to save the Assad regime.
Then, the report once again refers to videos posted by the “opposition” and reports provided by “human rights organizations” (probably the primary source is White Helmets?).
And the rest of the paper is dedicated to blaiming and shaming of Russia and Syria.
When the chemical attack happened the rebels have lost 90 percent of their gains and werent threatening Hama airport . Unfortunately the people who dont know a lot about Syria will believe the version that chemical weapons were used to stop the rebel offensive
Everyone paying attention knows this was a false flag chemical attack to gain sympathy for the militants and persuade trump to reverse his position on syria.
Playing trump was so successful, it encourages more chemical attacks and massacres of civilians.
”Everyone paying attention” isn’t even close to being enough, sadly. My parents, uncles, close family etc all grew up in the comfort of the US and the West saving them from ww1, ww2, and the cold war and the USSR and think that the US gov would never lie and they would never fathom that these people would go drunk with power, go rogue and even full out corrupt since they gave them so much credit and praise. Sad.
I’m waiting for Chinese intelligence to report on who made the chemicals. I will probably believe China, everyone else is too interested.
I’m surprised they haven’t flown a team in already. China would be good for that.
Covert spies for China, hopefully there already, would be more effective than any public team.
I am wondering how the tomahawks are changing Syrian and Russian deployments??? My guess and advice is that Syria will move towards an HTS/AQ first strategy and reduce offensives on the Daesh front until after HTS/AQ is defeated (like the allied Germany first strategy that really wasn’t). I also expect Russia to send more replacement equipment including replacing the destroyed aircraft and bombs, but less personnel to keep Russians out of harms way (except for air defense near Russian bases). Am I guessing right???
One might hope so. Satellite intel allowed them to do a pretty good job targeting the site. Sam batteries were eradicated, probably first. The Syrians and Russians would be wise to start preparing alternate sites and preparing some ‘spoof’ targets
What a bunch of horse shit! This is beyond pathetic!
Sadly that shit is SOP. And people still buy it, Trump IS the only President we got! All good Americans stand behind their President.
So Assad was forced into using CW because of battlefield threats?
Interesting. So that must mean that the battlefield weapon that needed to be eliminated was 20-30 something doe-eyed kids and not a column of Jihadist with tanks, MLRS or troop transports.
Mmmmm…..no.
Make no mistake. the chemicals killed adult combatant terrorists just like in Alleppo, they only showed or mentioned the nearby kids. against Al Qaeda, I could even support Sarin. It’s no worse on kids than the depleted Uranium the US uses, and it does kill terrorists. besides, how many of those kids were on the Junior Al Qaeda track?
Russia and Syria send letters to UN and in them they use links with videos and images, as well as to all sorts of reports by outside independent contractors and companies. US just makes a small report with only text and vaguely mentioning ‘human rights organizations’ or White Helments. LOL
White Helmet gang, the guys that have a natural immunity to Sarin, as they need no gloves of any kind when handling victims that are just dying of the said claimed chemical..
I mean compare the white house report, all text, with vague accusations and no links to any credible sources or evidence, to this
https://southfront.org/russian-foreign-ministry-slams-western-version-of-syrian-chemical-weapons-issue/
Notice that it is all just a lot of words, nothing concrete said nor do they make any sense.
I read the report. How can they simultaneously claim that a Syrian Jet bombed Khan Shaykun but it was impossible that it could have bombed a munitions warehouse? Also, the bomb crater in the street that they say was ground zero for the chemical attack, could have been old. Since they obtained it from a commercial satellite, it would be interesting to see if it was present earlier than April 4. I don’t know how to check such things. I wish I did.
Straw man argument: The Russians never denied the presence of Sarin gas, they wanted the OPCW to investigate and wanted it tested. It was probably a mixture of chemicals which would be consistent with a warehouse bombing.
Agree with you Chris, something definitely doesn’t sit right. Claims made that those ‘dead’ were kidnapped from another village, another claim is that they are actors and another from medical experts from Sweden suggests improper procedures and that they were drugged. Fact is where are the bodies, death certificates, autopsies, relatives….
The guy from the Dilbert comic summed it up best in his blog. Assad was doing great, his troops were winning on the battlefield, the US government no longer wanted to remove him, aaaaaaaand then he suddenly chose to commit, as he called it, suicide by Trump.
It just doesn’t make any sense. There is still no convincing smoking gun and certainly not a single shred of motive.
True, makes no sense and what is bothersome it wasn’t the first. Terrorists in Aleppo used it and at other places and nothing was done about it even when Russia and Syria notified the UN. This whole war is a large conspiracy based on lies.
Do these supposedly educated, intelligent being have any idea what they are doing? An average high school student can easily pick out the false narrative and manipulated false data.
So private corporate media fake news becomes part of the evidence. Fox news team gets to determine facts deciding war . Trump ran argument that corporate press lies so badly. Congress does not vote on war but media can justify it. Murdoch and major media now own Trump.
Unfortunately, the fact that in most areas the Syrian forces were advancing, holding static front line positions or had successfully countered a number of attempted advances by opposition forces across the country in the days leading up to the “attack”, while the report claimed the opposite, immediately puts a huge question mark over everything else written in the report. Furthermore, at that time the Americans had just claimed that removing Assad was not a priority anymore – so they are claiming Assad went insane for a little while and decided to risk his own new improved status for an attack where he appeared to have absolutely no military goal. Frankly, I am questioning how anyone thinks the “Assad decided to gas some civilians for the fun of it” version makes any sense at all in light of both his own political situation and the military situation in Syria at the time. They would have to somehow give him a motive, which this report has completely failed to provide.
Since when the Su-22 is a fixed-wing aircraft? Mr. Trump is always requesting for evidences regarding the allegations against him. He is right. I’m with him. But in this serious case are no evidences necessary? Double standards!! Video footages and reports by local activists and social media? They are calling always that social media is spreading fake-news. OMG. It looks like the report end evidences of the Joint Investigation Team regarding the downing of MH17.
The report contains NOTHING that even remotely proves anything. I see a lot of general statements and references to non-authentic sources, like human rights organizations. If this is the level of intelligence we get, and the type of sources it has, we are better off without people and organizations producing such crappy ‘intelligence’. Waste of taxpayer’s money
This is as pure BS as there ever was. Worthless piece of paper from the White House.
White House ” Report” is a bad joke; If you want to see a real updated report, plenty of evidences, of the false flag operation launched by Al Qaeda and “White Helmets” in Idlib, dont miss this: http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack_Khan_Sheikhoun_4_April_2017
How does killing 80 farmers stop an ISIS offensive? Especially in a town 40 miles from the nearest front. Why didn’t Assad drop Sarin on the siege lines around Idlib or in a village on the front lines.
US boast of using white phosphorus in 2005 Field Artillery Magazine, which burns to the bone. They won’t show you the pictures of the burned off limbs and melted faces of the children Israel and the US do, but alleged video of babies breathing through respirators takes us to war??? come one people