President Bashar Assad

Russia gives UN 100-page report showing Syrian rebels used sarin

Russia says a deadly March sarin attack in an Aleppo suburb was carried out by Syrian rebels, not forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, and it has delivered a 100-page report laying out its evidence to the United Nations.

A statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website late Wednesday said the report included detailed scientific analysis of samples that Russian technicians collected at the site of the alleged attack, Khan al Asal in northern Syria. The attack killed 26 people.

Probes from Khan al-Assal show chemicals used in the March 19 attack did not belong to standard Syrian army ammunition, and that the shell carrying the substance was similar to those made by a rebel fighter group, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated.

A statement released by the ministry on Wednesday particularly drew attention to the “massive stove-piping of various information aimed at placing the responsibility for the alleged chemical weapons use in Syria on Damascus, even though the results of the UN investigation have not yet been revealed.”

By such means “the way is being paved for military action” against Damascus, the ministry pointed out.

But the samples taken at the site of the March 19 attack and analyzed by Russian experts indicate that a projectile carrying the deadly nerve agent sarin was most likely fired at Khan al-Assal by the rebels, the ministry statement suggests, outlining the 100-page report handed over to the UN by Russia.

The key points of the report have been given as follows:

• the shell used in the incident “does not belong to the standard ammunition of the Syrian army and was crudely according to type and parameters of the rocket-propelled unguided missiles manufactured in the north of Syria by the so-called Bashair al-Nasr brigade”;

• RDX, which is also known as hexogen or cyclonite, was used as the bursting charge for the shell, and it is “not used in standard chemical munitions”;

• soil and shell samples contain “the non-industrially synthesized nerve agent sarin and diisopropylfluorophosphate,” which was “used by Western states for producing chemical weapons during World War II.”

The findings of the report are “extremely specific,” as they mostly consist of scientific and technical data from probes’ analysis, the ministry stressed, adding that this data can “substantially aid” the UN investigation of the incident.

While focusing on the Khan al-Assal attack on March 19, in which at least 26 civilians and Syrian army soldiers were killed, and 86 more were injured, the Russian Foreign Ministry also criticized the “flawed selective approach” of certain states in reporting the recent incidents of alleged chemical weapons use in August.

The hype around the alleged attack on the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta showed “apparent attempts to cast a veil over the incidents of gas poisoning of Syrian army soldiers on August 22, 24 and 25,” the ministry said, adding that all the respective evidence was handed to the UN by Syria.

The condition of the soldiers who, according to Damascus, suffered poisoning after discovering tanks with traces of sarin, has been examined and documented by the UN inspectors, the ministry pointed out, adding that “any objective investigation of the August 21 incident in eastern Ghouta is impossible without the consideration of all these facts.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said the UN investigators are set to return to Syria to investigate several other cases of alleged chemical weapons use, including the March 19 incident in Khan al-Assal.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said U.S. officials were unmoved by the Russian report and held the Assad government responsible for both the Khan al Asal attack in March and the Aug. 21 attack outside Damascus.

“We have studied the Russian report but have found no reason to change our assessment,” she said.

Richard Guthrie, formerly project leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the Russian statement on the makeup of the sarin found at Khan al Asal, which the Russians indicated was not military grade, might reflect only that “there are a lot of different ways to make sarin.”

He added: “The messy mix described by the Russians might also be the result of an old sarin stock being used. Sarin degrades (the molecules break up) over time and this would explain a dirty mix.”

Jean Pascal Zanders, a senior research fellow at the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies, said the mix might not have been World War II vintage.

“The Western Allies were not aware of the nerve agents until after the occupation of Germany,” he wrote in an email. “The USA, for example, struggled with the sarin (despite having some of the German scientists) until the 1950s, when the CW program expanded considerably.” – RT/McClatchy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/05/201269/russia-says-it-has-compiled-a.html#storylink=cpy

Al Qaida takes crucial airport in Syria

Rebel wearing an Al Qaida shirt — Wearing an al Qaida shirt

Syrian rebels spearheaded by al Qaida in Iraq took control Tuesday of a crucial military airport in northern Syria, opening a vital supply line between the rebel-held north and Turkey.

The end of the siege that had clamped down the airport since last October began Monday, when two non-Syrian nationals drove an armored personnel carrier, loaded with explosives, into a position manned by defenders of the regime of President Bashar Assad. The explosion devastated the Assad troops and allowed rebels to overrun the Mannagh Air Base in Idlib province.

Those rebels included multiple units affiliated with the Syrian Military Council, an umbrella group with U.S. backing. That poses an uncomfortable pairing of a group supported by U.S. resources with Islamist organizations Washington has labeled as terrorist.

The Syrian Opposition Coalition, the political component of the SMC, announced that the airbase had been “liberated’ by a mixture of nine rebel groups. They included the al Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS, and its Syrian sister organization, the Nusra Front.

Taking the airbase was critical because the facility had been used by Assad’s forces to target rebel supply lines and positions with artillery and air strikes.

In a series of unverifiable but credible videos released online by several rebel groups, the base appeared to hold significant amounts of military equipment. That will be welcomed by the supply-poor rebels.

Along with opening a new supply line from Turkey, the fall of the base helps the rebels in a potentially more significant way.

“This frees up some of the best rebel fighters from the Jihadist elements to help push offensives in Aleppo and Latakia,” said a European military attaché closely following the fight from neighboring Lebanon who spoke only under the condition of anonymity. “They now have the luxury to push men out to either help take the airport (in Aleppo) or help push down the coast (in Latakia.) Or both.”

Charles Lister, who has been closely monitoring the fight for the London-based military analysis group IHS Janes, agreed that the rebel seizure of the airbase could prove in the fighting to come.

“(The) capture will undoubtedly allow participating groups to re-distribute their forces further south in Aleppo to two main battlefronts: the ongoing siege of Aleppo International Airport and the governorate capital itself,” he said in a statement. “The ongoing militant Islamist-led offensive on the Alawite heartland of Latakia could also benefit.”

Within hours of the announcement, photos began appearing across social media sites often used by jihadist groups that showed the flag of ISIS flying over the airbase.

Those images highlighted the Islamist nature of the final assault.

Several sites praised the role of Jaish al Muhajireen, or the Army of the Immigrants, an offshoot of al Qaida. It’s composed of mostly foreign fighters recruited to fight alongside the primarily Iraqi Islamic State and the mostly Syrian Nusra Front.

The group is apparently led by Abu Omar al-Shishani, who appears to be either Chechen or Georgian.

Lister points to the expanded role for both Jais al Muhajireen and the Islamic State as a sign of the effectiveness of the more radical Islamist groups – both in the siege and in the overall fighting in Idlib Province.

“The victory again underlines the leading strategic impact being played by militant Islamists, particularly in northern Syria,” Lister said. “Every major offensive in northern Syria this year has been announced, led, and coordinated by Islamists.” – McClatchy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/06/198675/al-qaida-groups-lead-syrian-rebels.html#storylink=cpy

Who will US really arm in Syria?

The US decision to arm the Syrian rebels fighting government troops has sparked feuds among various rebel factions dominated by radical Islamist fighters. As internal schisms among the rebels deepen, fighters from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front have reportedly assassinated a large number of officers of the Free Syrian Army.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front is now said to be targeting Free Syrian Army (FSA), but these two share a common goal – to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The rebel ranks met in Istanbul recently, where they could make no type of agreement between themselves. By all accounts this power struggle has been going on for months.

The decision by President Obama and the NATO powers that they will give weapons to the Free Syrian Army probably mean some of those arms will be used to attack Kurds in the northern part of Syria.

Reports say that many FSA fighters are leaving more modern brigades for hard-line groups.

In neighboring Iraq and Lebanon, the Al-Nusra Front has become the lead faction in the opposition. The so-called ‘moderate rebels’ has no clout against the hundreds or thousands, millions or billions – we don’t know – coming from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the American allies in the Persian Gulf.

The Free Syrian army seems to have deposed some of the initial leaders, but rather like the pre-Iraq-War time, we don’t really know. It isn’t stopping the Americans. They seem to know exactly who the Free Syrian Army is, and they have 2,000 marines over the Jordanian border putting in Patriot missiles and getting ready for war. They were flying F-16s over the past 48 hours.

France does not seem to know who the FSA is either, as Paris is saying “no more arms, no more weapons, until we find out who the personnel really are in this rebel movement.”

The US should be bombing Syria not with weapons, but with airlifts of medicine and urgent medical care for all of these millions of refugees.

Syria already had a refugee crisis in the fallout of the Iraq war, and it has its own one now. have reportedly assassinated a large number of officers of the Free Syrian Army. – RT