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Monday, June 3, 2013

More False Reports of Sarin Usage by Assad's Opposition in Syria

This blog began life as an email response to one Henry D., an Assad supporter, who posted the WSWS piece Syrian opposition fighters arrested with chemical weapons to a bunch of Left maillists. As it got longer, I decided it was worthy of a blog post.


These reports being spread this week that Turkish authorities have arrested Syrian rebels with sarin gas near the Syrian border are without a foundation in fact. They are lies, not to put too fine a point on the matter. That hasn't stopped the hundreds of Assad supporters on the web, like Henry D. here, from reporting this story designed to muddy the waters and aid Assad in his efforts to suppress the rebellion even with poison gas, as he is beginning to do.

The goal is simply to create a "he says", "she says" controversy that allows Assad's slaughter to continue, obscures his use of chemical weapons, along with Scuds, cluster bombs, MIGs, attack helicopters, barrel bombs, long range artillery and incendiaries to kill any Syrians that won't submit to his rule.

Here are the facts Henry D. neglected.

Turkish authorities are questioning six suspects detained during simultaneous anti-terrorism police raids in four cities on 30 May 2013, according to the state-run agency.

The Anadolu Agency reported Friday that authorities released six other people without charge who were detained during the raids in Adana, Hatay, Mersin and Istanbul. Here is the AP story on this:

Turkey questions 6 terror suspects after raids
May. 31 9:04 AM EDT
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish authorities are questioning six suspects detained during simultaneous anti-terrorism police raids in four cities, according to the state-run agency.

The Anadolu Agency reported Friday that authorities released six other people without charge who were detained during the raids in Adana, Hatay, Mersin and Istanbul.

Authorities have refused to identify the suspects, but the private Dogan news agency said all 12 were detained during a police sweep on suspected members of al-Qaida or of Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaida linked opposition force fighting in Syria.

Huseyin Avni Cos, governor of Adana province, said some chemical materials were confiscated during the raid, but denied a report which claimed that sarin gas was seized during the raids. He said experts were trying to determine what the materials could be used for.
The Long War Journal says:
While Adana mayor Hüseyin Avni Cos denied that the suspects were captured with sarin gas and warned against labeling them as part of any terror organization, the Turkish mainstream dailies Sabah and Milliyet are reporting today that the suspects were in fact members of the al Qaeda-linked Al Nusrah Front and were captured with sarin gas.
While it may be very useful for the pro-Assad forces to believe unquestionably these Turkish newspaper reports, more observant readers will question how they know more than the Turkish government is reporting and especially, how could they possibly know, on the same day as the arrests, that the seize chemicals are sarin, while the government is saying there was no gas found and the chemicals found have yet to be tested.

The Daily Star of Lebanon quoted the governor of Adana, where the arrest were made:
"We cannot reveal any organisation names right now, but their links will be evident after the questioning," governor Huseyin Avni Cos was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. "there is no gas or anything of that sort captured as claimed," adding that they had found "some chemicals" that were still being studied by experts.
These official statements by the governor should carry a lot more weight that unsourced claims in the newspaper, particularly since he responded directly to those claims. But never mind those arrested have not been linked to the fighting in Syria; the newspaper report claims they planned to attack a US air base. Never mind that it has been determined that no sarin was found. The fascists and their supporters will never let facts get in the way of a good story, so the claim that "CIA’s al-Qaeda Mercenaries in Syria Caught with Sarin Gas" has been trumpeted far and wide by the likes of RT, Press TV, Infowars, Global Research, Voice of Russia, Syria News, Breibart, Godlike Productions, Syria 360, VoltaireNet and thousands of pro-Russian, pro-Putin, pro-fascist mouthpieces. On these mail lists we have Henry D. doing his part to support Assad.

The problem is that the Assad regime has already slaughtered about a hundred thousand people in its desperate attempt to extend the life of its 40+ year dictatorship, it really does have a huge stockpile of chemical weapons and it really has been using them against Syrians on at least 6 occasions.

Since it is now stepping up its mass murder with the help of foreign killers from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Russian, and since it is starting to use that stockpile of chemical weapons, those that spread these false reports also have a responsibility for the bloodletting being carried out by the Syrian government against the Syrian people.

Earlier, UN Investigator Carla Del Ponte made similarly unsupported claims of sarin gas use by Assad's opposition. Never mind that her own UN commission denied her claims only hours after she made them, the same propaganda network got busy repeating that false report thousands of times. I wrote about that incident in these blog posts:

Syria Sarin Blame Game: Is Carla Del Ponte at it again?
Carla Del Ponte in the WikiLeaks Cablegate files

And now I see that today there are fresh reports of Assad's opposition with chemical weapons. Assad's Syrian army is claiming it has found rebels with sarin gas. Since that source has a long history of fabricated news, these reports should be given zero creditability. From the Iranian PressTV we have this new report from Sunday:
Syrian army seizes sarin cylinders from militants in Hama
The Syrian army has seized two cylinders of the nerve agent sarin during an operation in the city of Hama.

Syrian media say the operation was carried out against a militant hideout in the city’s al-Faraieh neighborhood on Saturday.

Sarin is a colorless, odorless liquid gas which causes respiratory arrest and death. The poisonous agent has been classified as a weapon of mass destruction in UN Resolution 687.

The foreign-backed militants in Syria have repeatedly threatened to use such weapons.

A video released last December showed them testing chemical agents on lab rabbits and threatening to kill pro-government Syrians. More...
The YouTube video referred to was one of the earliest attempts by the Assad regime to frame its opposition with a chemical weapons charge, but it was so obviously fake that people called it out right on YouTube. Here are some of the comments it received.

juha-matti koponen commented:
If u google the first 3 ingredients shown on the video, the ones that u can actually read the labels. They are fertilizer component x2, oxidizer x1. I would assume that if u vaporize a fertilizer in a closed container and put some small animal such as a rabbit inside, it would die. I wonder how this would work in an open atmosphere? No love for the FSA, but still this video is pure propaganda on my opinion.
lerch25 commented:
This looked more like a propaganda video with all the muslim singing and the goofy radiation hazard stickers in what is obviously a chemistry lab...I'm calling bullshit on this!!!!
Sal prive commented:
This looks like a set-up by Assad forces. In the beginning you see Tekkim Chemicals (which is Turkish) and the Jihadi songs make it look like the rebels are doing this. Its too obvious.

MrTrevja
commented:
this vid is total fake, and demonstrates an intent to use chemical agents and blame it on rebels.
NomenNesci0 commented:
Lab masks don't protect from gases so there's something fishy about this video. The people around the experiment should have died as there's no ventilation in the experiment box and all the gases can escape into the room.
Abdo Al Jurf commented:
cute charade .. these are pesticides, pause nd focus on each container, they are not deadly chems, mostly chemical cleaners nd pesticides.. and there are only 2 people seriously?? wat kind of a battalion is this ! lisen after 5:00 there's only one person saying "allahu akbar" and they are saying it in a very comic way .. and if u speak arabic you would know how they are talking in a very sarcastic way for more than 2 mints .. he literally said "look how strong and big they are" !

Omar Al Ghuraab
commented:
just a bunch of DESPERATE assad supporters staging a FAKE JIHADIST VIDEO.

Konjkov Vladimir
commented:
It's a fake! There were sodium permanganate in a flask and a concentrated solution of hydrochloric acid was added. Gaseous chlorine killed the rabbits. Everybody can make it in a kitchen.
SyrianForFreeDom666 posted a video critique of the Syrian Rebel Gas Test on Rabbits Video that completely debunks it. In the translated comments he says:
Published on Dec 7, 2012
The Syrian regime trying to say that the free Syrian army have a chemicals weapon, in this video we will explain why this video is a LIE made up by the Syrian regime Intelligence to accuse the free Syrian army that they have a chemical weapon ,
Let's see what the chemical material in the original video ,
first material 1. Potassium permanganate: used in sterilization it available anywhere .
second material 2. Potassium nitrate: using fertilizer, fireworks available to everyone and has no use chemical weapons.
third material 3. Sodium nitrate: a preservative for food available to everyone and has no direct interference with making chemical weapons .
fourth material 4. Potassium chlorate: used in Matchmaking, fireworks and produce oxygen.
fifth material 5. Urea: his use-in fertilizers.
sixth material 6. Magnesium Nitrate: used in the treatment of soil and fertilizer.
seventh material 7. Compound acetone: known as nail polish remover.

In the original video the company nationality it's Turkish so the regime trying to say that the Turkish government helping the terrorist group.

Turkish company produces medicines!!

Since the regime wants to convince the West this lie was to be put an English translation on the banner, to see it.
Although this video has been debunked a thousand times and is revealed as a fake to anyone who actually bothers to watch it, that is of little concern to Assad and his supporters. They are in the business of papering the record to create a legend of chemical weapons use by the Syrian revolutionaries. They will continue to muddy the waters so as to create confusion about what is really going on while Assad and his supporters go about the business of slaughtering real people with real weapons, chemical and otherwise.

I talk about the real tragedy in Syria, the ongoing massacre of civilians in my blog today: The Crime of Qusayr
If 1500 injured people were trapped in a mine somewhere with more than ten thousand other living souls trapped with them, it would be all over the news and help would be streaming in from every part of the globe.

If a natural disaster or industrial accident was threatening the lives of so many people, the world would be holding its breath while it watched rescuers assembled from many nations save the still living and return the dead to their families.

What is happening in Qusayr is not a natural disaster or industrial accident. It is a government willing to use mass slaughter as a method to regain control over people in an area that had freed themselves from that murderous control over a year ago, and because it is what it is, and because some people are fighting back, they can call it a battle, ignore the massive civilian suffering, and generally pretend that what has been happening in Qusayr is not simply murder.
This is the type of report you will never hear about from Henry D. and all the other pro-Assad mouthpieces on the Left.

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria

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